Question 31800
in words:
let original price be x
So we then reduce the price by 25%.


So what is 25% of x? Well, 25% is 25 percent. PERCENT is Latin: PER CENT....out of 100. So 25 out of 100 is 25/100 --> 0.25.


So 0.25 of x means 0.25x. This is the amount we took off, to reduce the price.


So we had ORIGINAL less REDUCTION = new price
--> x - 0.25x = 36
--> 1x - 0.25x = 36
--> 0.75x = 36
--> x = 36/0.75
--> x = 48


Once you get used to questions like these, you can do the majority in your head:


Eg reduce by 12% is 0.88x, since we have x-0.12x.
Eg reduce by 40% is 0.60x, since we have x-0.40x.


Simialrly, an increase of 15% is 1.15x, since we have x+0.15x. And so on.


Does that help?


jon.