The price of lunch for 15 people was $207.00, including a 15 percent gratuity for service. What was the average price per person, EXCLUDING the gratuity?
3 Explanations
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ELIANA LOPEZ CAICEDO
Why can't I say 207 less 15%? .85 * 207 = 175.9 and now divide this number by 15 that is equal to choice A?
That’s because 85% of 207 is not the same as the original price plus 15%! Let’s look at a more basic example:
Let’s say the price of a meal is $100 including a 50% gratuity. Using your method, we could do: $100 – (50% of 100) = $50. However, $50 is not the original price of the meal! The original price would be:
x * 1.5 = $100
x = $100 / 1.5
x = $66.67
So to solve this problem, we need to set it up such that the original price * 1.15 = $207. We can then work backwards to find the original price.
3 Explanations