Ten Types of Percent Problems

At the bottom of this page you will find a section for making practice problems along with the answers. Additionally worksheets and answer keys can also be generated and printed.

    TERMS AND FORMULAS YOU NEED TO KNOW

      Commission / Earnings
    1. Commission (C) -- the amount of money a person is paid based on their sales.
    2. Commission percent (C%) -- the commission percent.
    3. Sales (S) -- the amount of sales the commission is paid on.
    4. Earnings is the sum of someone's regular pay (P) and their commission.

    5. C = C%•S    ----     Commission = Commission% • Sales
    6. E = P + C     ----     Earnings = Regular Pay + Commission

      Sales Tax / Total Cost
    1. Tax percent (T%) -- the tax percent or tax rate paid on a purchase.
    2. Tax (T) -- the amount of money payed in tax on a purchase.
    3. Purchase (P) -- the amount of money payed for a purchase.
    4. Total cost (TC) -- the sum of the purchase price and the sales tax.

    5. T = T% • P     ----     Tax = Tax% • Amount of Purchase.
    6. TC = P + T     ----     Total Cost = Price + Tax.

      Percent of Increase / Percent of Decrease
    1. Change percent (C%) -- the percent of the change.
    2. Chang amount (C) -- the amount of the change, up or down, positive or negative.
    3. Starting amount, initial amount, beginning amount (S) -- the amount at the beginning or start.
    4. Ending amount, final amount (E) -- the amount at the end or when the change is finished.

    5. C = E - S     ----     amount of change = ending amount - starting amount.
    6. C% = C ÷ S     ----     percent of change = change ÷ starting amount.
    7. C% = (E - S) ÷ S     ----     another formula for the percent of change.

      Cost, Markup, Markup%, Selling price, Regular price
    1. Cost (C) -- the amount of money a store pays for an item (the wholesale price of the item).
    2. Markup percent (M%) -- the percent of the cost that a store marks up and item.
    3. Markup (M) -- the amount of money a store adds to the cost of an item to find the selling price.

    4. M = M%•C     ----     Markup = Markup% • Cost
    5. R = C + M     ----     Selling price or regular price (R) = Cost + Markup

      Discount, Discount%, Sale price
    1. Discount percent (D%) -- the percent of the selling price that a store reduces its price by.
    2. Discount (D) -- the amount of money a store reduces the regular price by to get the sale price.

    3. D = D% • R     ----     Discount = Discount% • Selling price.
    4. S = R - D     ----     Sale price = regular price - the discount.

Problem # 1