Question

Emily has a coupon for 20% off her purchase. She finds a backpack on the discount rack. It's original price is $60 but is 30% off.

Emily thinks 30% & 20 % make 50% so the backpack will be $30.

Is Emily correct?

Answer 1

Lets find the final discount percentage, to do this we need to know the final price of the backpack.

Initial price is 60, let's apply the first 30 % discount:

$60-60(.3)=42$

Now  we apply the 20 % discount to 42:

$42-42(.2)=33.6$

So the final price of the backpack is 33.6, this is 56 % of 60.
The final discount was of 44 % off, not 50 %.