SOLUTION: When the price of an item was increased by sh.5, I bought 2 items fewer with sh.200. what is the current price of the item? (It's a kcse question on 1994 pp1 no.16)

Click here to see ALL problems on Finance

Question 1182797: When the price of an item was increased by sh.5, I bought 2 items fewer with sh.200.
what is the current price of the item? (It's a kcse question on 1994 pp1 no.16)

Found 3 solutions by josgarithmetic, greenestamps, ikleyn:
Answer by josgarithmetic(39617)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

PRICE QTY COST p+5 200/(p+5) 200 p 200/p 200 DIFFRNCE 2

Answer by greenestamps(13200)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

The number you can buy for sh.200 is 200 divided by the price.

The new price is sh.5 more than the old, so

let x = old price
then x+5 = new price

The number you can buy at the new price is 2 less than the number you could buy at the old price:

Multiply everything by the least common denominator to clear fractions:

x=-25 or x=20; obviously the negative number makes no sense in the problem, so x=20.

The problem asks for the "current" (new) price, which is x+5=25.

ANSWER: The current price is sh.25.

Knowing how to solve the problem using formal algebra is important. But if this is a question on a competitive math exam, it's much faster to solve the problem informally.

To do that, write out (on paper if needed; or just in your mind) a list of all the pairs of positive integers whose product is 200; then look for two of those pairs in which one of the numbers differs by 2 and the other differs by 5.

1 * 200
2 * 100
4 * 50
5 * 40
8 * 25
10 * 20

Look at the last two pairs. The 8 and 10 differ by 2; the 25 and 20 differ by 5.

That gives you your answer. For sh.200, you can buy 8 of the items at sh.25 each or 10 of them at sh.20 each. So the current price, at which you can buy 2 fewer of the items than before, is sh.25.

Answer by ikleyn(52781)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
When the price of an item was increased by sh.5, I bought 2 items fewer with sh.200.
what is the current price of the item? (It's a kcse question on 1994 pp1 no.16)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While reading your post, I could not understand the meaning of these words   "I bought 2 items fewer with sh.200".

I could not understand "fewer than WHAT ?"

I do not think that the text in your post is one-to-one word-in-word copy from the original source,
because standard textbooks and Math problems do not allow such uncertain formulations.

If it is your free retelling of the problem, then PLEASE do not retell Math problems by your own words:
simply copy-paste or print one-to-one word-to-word from the source.

///////////

Hello, from this abbreviation   " kcse ",   it looks like that you are somehow connected/associated/affiliated with Kenya.

If so, can you tell me please, what months is a school year in Kenya and what months is the LONG vacation?

I am asking because part of Kenya is in the North hemisphere, while the other part is in the South hemisphere . . .