ShmoopTube

00:03

Here’s your shmoop du jour…

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Brook’s sister dreams of finding a cure for cancer.

00:08

Brook… has slightly lower aspirations. She dreams of finding the best bargain.

00:13

Brook purchased a dress that originally sold for $49.95 on sale at 15% off.

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On top of these savings, she used her store charge card and

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received an additional 3% off on top of the 15%.

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Which of the following is the best estimate of the final cost of the dress before sales tax?

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And here are the potential answers...

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OK, so this question is testing us on our ability to round and estimate…

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…and work quickly through a problem with relatively complex percentage applications.

00:45

The answer set has no pennies in it so it’s obvious that “close” is good enough for this problem.

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So anyway… Brook picked up her fifty dollar dress –

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and yeah we can round the 49.95 to 50… at 15% off.

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That is, we take 15 percent of 50 which is 7 dollars and 50 cents and subtract it from the fifty.

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That gets us 42 dollars and 50 cents after the sale discount.

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Brook also got 3 percent off of the 50 dollars…

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…read the wording of the question carefully – it’s not off of the 42.50…

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…and that 3% off of the 50 is a $1.50.

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Ok, subtract the $1.50 now from the 42.50 and we have 41 bucks…

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…the answer is B.

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As in… “Bargain… achieved.”

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