Challenge Your Exam Readiness With Our Free GED Practice Questions

Handle successive percent changes multiplicatively. Start with $80. A 15% increase means multiply by 1.15: $80 × 1.15 = $92. A 10% discount means multiply by 0.90: $92 × 0.90 = $82.80. Thus, Option B is correct. A common error is to add and subtract percentages directly to the original price (e.g., +15% − 10% = +5% → $84), which ignores that the second change applies to the new price, not the original. Another mistake is reversing the order; but in this case, reversing would give $80 × 0.90 × 1.15 = $82.80 as well—the same result—because multiplication is commutative. On the GED, translate each step into a multiplier: increase by p% → ×(1 + p), decrease by q% → ×(1 − q). For a quick reasonableness check, 10% off $92 is $9.20, so $92 − $9.20 = $82.80. This sits between the starting $80 and the intermediate $92, which makes sense after an up-then-down sequence where the down percent is smaller than the up percent.