dealer purchased

Question

the dealer purchased an item, marked it up (increased its price) and sold it to a customer for $560. If the markup was 40% of the dealer's purchase price, what did the dealer pay for the item?

 

Answer 1

This one isn't hard at all, but you do have to be careful about what goes where. The easiest formula I have ever seen for percentages is:

 

Part     =     ‰               In this case, identifying the place for $560 may not feel obvious. A handy rule for this is:

Whole         100                "the change is the part and the whole is the start". The number that changed into something 

                                        new is the $560, so it is the Part. You don't know how it began, so "X" is your whole, Now for the sneakiest aspect of this. Charging the wholesale price would mean the customer paid 100% of what the dealer paid. Instead, the customer paid 40% more, for a total of 140%, which of course goes in the percentage place. NEVER rewrite the percentage as a decimal in this equation (if it has one in it already, such 62.1%, that's fine; keep it that way). 

So now you have:

 

560   =   140

  x           100

 

Cross-multiply:

560 * 100 = 140X     and divide both sides by 140 to create:

 

$400  =  X