The original price of a sofa is $500. Answer the following questions. If the sofa price decreased by 20%, what is the new price?

Answer 1

This is a multiplication problem: "what is 20% of $500?".

You'll need to change the percent to a decimal first though (or use the "%" key on your calculator when doing the calculation).

To change a percent to its decimal equivalent, multiply by 0.01, or just move the decimal point two places to the left. So 20% becomes 0.20 and you can do 0.20 x $500 to find the amount of the reduction. Subtract the answer from $500 to find the new price.

Alternatively, if we say the original price is at 100%, then the reduced price is at 100% - 20% = 80%.

So you can do 0.80 x $500 and get the new price that way. (Try them both!)

Answer 2

(0.20)(500) = ?

Now subtract that amount from 500