Question

Anita attends a private school where she must wear a uniform. This year, the price of the uniform is $86.80, which is 9.6% more than it cost last year. How much were uniforms last year?

Help please

Answer 1

The price of the uniforms last year was about $79.20.

Explanation:

In order to calculate the price of the uniforms last year, it is important to understand two important thing that can be inferred by what is told in the problem. This year's uniforms are 9.6% more than last year's. The easiest way to understand this line of information is that if we view the prices of the uniform from the perspective of last year's price, we can set the price of last year's uniform as 100% of the original price, and this year's uniform as 109.6% of the original price. Essentially, this year's uniform price is 109.6% of what it would cost you to buy a uniform last year.

Since you are given the information that this year, the uniforms cost $86.80, you know that $86.80 is 109.6% of last year's uniform cost. Now you can write an equation to solve for last year's price.

Set last year's uniform price to be represented by the variable
`x`, and you will have the function of
`109.6`% ·
`x = 86.8`. In order to solve for
`x`, you simply divide both sides of the equation by 109.6%, which you will then get
`x = 86.8` ÷ 109.6%, which can be rewritten as
`x=86.8` ÷
`(109.6)/(100)` or
`x=86.8` ·
`(100)/(109.6)` ≈ $79.20. Hence, last year's uniforms costed $79.20.

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