A company’s quarterly revenue increased from million to million. By what percent did the revenue increase?

Solution available with step-by-step explanation

SAT Percentages Question 53 | Free SAT Prep | Aniko

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Question 53·Medium·Percentages

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A company’s quarterly revenue increased from $2.5$ million to $3.1$ million. By what percent did the revenue increase?

For percent increase or decrease questions, always follow the same pattern: (1) identify the original value and the new value, (2) compute the change (new minus original), and (3) use the formula $\text{percent change} = (\text{change} \div \text{original}) \times 100$ . Be especially careful to divide by the original amount, not the new amount, and do a quick reasonableness check (e.g., estimate whether the percent should be less than, about, or more than $25\%$ ) to eliminate clearly wrong choices.

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Focus on the change

Before thinking about percents, find how many millions of dollars the revenue increased by. What is $3.1 - 2.5$ ?

Which number goes in the denominator?

Percent increase is always based on the original value. In this problem, which value (2.5 or 3.1) should you divide by?

Use the percent change formula

Use the formula $\text{percent increase} = (\text{increase} \div \text{original}) \times 100$ . Plug in your numbers and then convert the decimal result to a percent.

Desmos Guide

Compute the percent increase directly

In Desmos, type the expression ((3.1 - 2.5) / 2.5) * 100. Look at the numerical result that Desmos gives; that value is the percent increase from $2.5$ million to $3.1$ million.

Step-by-step Explanation

Identify the original and new amounts

The revenue increased from $2.5$ million to $3.1$ million.

Original amount (starting value): $2.5$ million
New amount (ending value): $3.1$ million

Percent increase is always based on the original amount.

Find the actual increase in revenue

Subtract the original amount from the new amount:

Increase $= 3.1 - 2.5$
Increase $= 0.6$ million

So the revenue went up by $0.6$ million.

Set up the percent increase formula

Use the formula:

\text{percent increase} = \frac{\text{increase}}{\text{original amount}} \times 100

Here, the increase is $0.6$ and the original amount is $2.5$ , so:

\text{percent increase} = \frac{0.6}{2.5} \times 100

Now we just need to compute this value.

Compute the percent and choose the answer

First divide:

$0.6 \div 2.5 = 0.24$

Now convert the decimal to a percent by multiplying by $100$ :

$0.24 \times 100 = 24\%$

So the company’s revenue increased by 24%, which matches choice B) 24%.

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Step-by-step Explanation

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Step-by-step Explanation