Question

The price of platinum went from $1,479.00 a troy ounce down to $1,035.30 a troy ounce during the past 4 months. This represents a decrease in price of what percent?

Answer 1

Solution:

Given:

$\begin{gathered} Old\text{ value}=\text{ \ 1479.00} \\ new\text{ value}=\text{ \ 1035.30} \end{gathered}$

The percentage decrease is calculated with the formula,

$\begin{gathered} percent\text{ decrease}=\frac{old\text{ }value-new\text{ }value}{old\text{ value}}\times100\text{ \%} \\ percent\text{ decrease}=\frac{1479-1035.30}{1479}\times100\text{ \%} \\ percent\text{ decrease}=\frac{443.7}{1479}\times100\text{ \%} \\ percent\text{ decrease}=30\text{\%}^ \\ \end{gathered}$

Therefore, this represents a decrease in the price of 30%