business math

Question

A book has a list price of $39.99, but the bookstore receives a 40% discount from the publisher. How much does the bookstore have to pay per copy of this book ? a) $15.99 b)$23.99 c)$26.99 d)31.99

Answer 1

Business math is a lot simpler than it looks!  Let's look at another example, to break down the problem.  Say a farmer sells tomatoes at $56.99 per crate, but the local grocer gets a discount of 30%.  How much does the local grocer pay per crate?

 

What do we know?  Each crate is $56.99, and the discount is 30%.

 

To start, we'd multiply the cost of the crate by the discount :  56.99 x .30

 

We get 17.097, which we can round up to 17.1.  So the discount the grocer gets per crate is $17.10.

 

Next, we subtract the discount from the cost of the crate :  $56.99 - $17.10.

 

Finally, we have our answer :  The grocer pays $39.89 per crate of tomatoes.

 

The same strategy can be applied to your problem!