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Puzzle for Today

Puzzle No. 546– Thursday 15 August

Some students will pick up Core Maths results today, an alternate course to A-Level. Here is a typical question. Tom buys t-shirts for £22.50 each. Tom has to decide what price he wants to put on each t-shirt. If he doesn’t sell them all, he will reduce his price by 10%.He still wants to make 20% profit on the cost of each reduced-priced t-shirt. What should the price be for each t-shirt?

Today's #PuzzleForToday has been set by Bobby Seagull and fellow maths teacher Susan Okereke, who are both co-hosts of the Maths Appeal podcast.

Click here for the answer

£30.

Let P be the original price of the t-shirt that Tom will look to sell.

Then if he doesn’t sell them all, the price will be discounted to 0.9 P (This is 100% - 10% discount).

This 0.9P still needs to give Tom a 20% profit on his purchase price of £22.50. This is 1.2 x £22.50 = £27.

So 0.9 P = £27.

£27/0.9 = £30 for original selling price of t-shirt.

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