Question

At a sale, dresses were sold for $39 each. If the dresses originally cost $60 each, what percentage of its original price was a dress sold for?

Answer 1

65%

Explanation:

We're looking for how big a part of the original price the reduced price is.

This can be done using division.

E.g., if the reduced price was $1, and the original price was $10, we can find how big of a part $1 is of $10 by dividing them.

`(1)/(10) = 0.1 = 10\%`

The reduced price is 10% of the original price. Remember that 0.1 in decimal is 10%, same as how 1.0 is 100%, and 0.3 is 30%.

Let's try this using our dresses. The reduced price was $39, and the original price was $60.

`(39)/(60) = 0.65 = 65\%`

The dresses were sold at 65% of the original price.

Note, this does NOT mean that they were sold at a 65% discount. To find that, we'd have to find out how big the discount was. Then, we'd divide it by the original price.

For example, if the original price was $10, and the reduced price is $9, then the reduced price is 90% of the original price, but it's at a 10% discount.

`(9)/(10) = 0.9 = 90\%`

`10-9=1`

`(1)/(10)=0.1=10\%`