1950 AHSME Problems/Problem 36

Problem

A merchant buys goods at $25\%$ off the list price. He desires to mark the goods so that he can give a discount of $20\%$ on the marked price and still clear a profit of $25\%$ on the selling price. What percent of the list price must he mark the goods?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 125\% \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 100\% \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 120\% \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 80\% \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 75\%$

Solution

Without loss of generality, we can set the list price equal to $100$. The merchant buys the goods for $100*.75=75$. Let $x$ be the marked price. We then use the equation $0.8x-75=25$ to solve for $x$ and get a marked price of $\boxed{\textbf{(A)}\ 125\%}$.

See Also

1950 AHSC (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 35
Followed by
Problem 37
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