240,930 views
24 votes
24 votes
After a 90% reduction, you purchase a new soft drink machine on sale for $66. What was the original price of the soft drink machine?

The original price was
GEZER

User Peter PAD
by
2.8k points

1 Answer

20 votes
20 votes

Answer:

$660.

Explanation:

So when we apply a discount to a product we multiply the price of the product (let's all is x) for the percentage of the discount (let's apply 90% as the probnlem says) so then we have the following operation:

x ⋅ (1-0.9) = y

Variable y is the price at which you bought the product, it's $66, on this case. Therefore, this is the expression we have:

x ⋅ (1-0.9) = $66

Now, to get the original value of the product (x), we solve the equation for x:

x ⋅ (1-0.9) = $66

x= $66 / (1-0.9)

x= $66 / (0.1)

x= $660

• Why did we multiply by 1-0.9?

This is because we were looking for the 10% of the original price, since it's a 90% discount. A simple way to solve the problem would've been to just divide the price by 0.1 (10%), because that's what remains after you discount 90% of the price.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A different example would be the following:

What was the original price of a product bought for $48 if it has a 60% discount?

x is original price.

Since a 60% discount was applied, 40% of the price remains at full price. Therefore, we multiply the original price (x) by 40%:

x ⋅ 40%= $48

x= $48 / 40%

x= $48 / 0.4

x= 120

$120 was the original price.

User Dan Tuffery
by
3.3k points