Percentages and Percent Change · Sub-skill drill
Percent in Word Problems
Word problems involving discounts, taxes, tips, commissions, and markups are all percent problems wrapped in context. Tax of 8 percent on a $50 item adds 8 percent of $50, giving a final price of $54. A 25 percent off sale on a $40 item subtracts 25 percent of $40, giving a final price of $30. The skill is reading the prompt to identify whether the percent is an addition or subtraction, and what the original value is. Underline the original-value phrase before computing.
How this sub-skill is tested on the SAT
Word problems involving discounts, taxes, tips, commissions, and markups are all percent problems wrapped in context. Tax of 8 percent on a $50 item adds 8 percent of $50, giving a final price of $54. A 25 percent off sale on a $40 item subtracts 25 percent of $40, giving a final price of $30. The skill is reading the prompt to identify whether the percent is an addition or subtraction, and what the original value is. Underline the original-value phrase before computing.
This sub-skill sits inside the broader Percentages and Percent Change topic, which is part of the College Board's Problem Solving & Data Analysis content domain. Problem Solving and Data Analysis is where the SAT pretends to be the real world. Every question in this domain is wrapped in context: a recipe, a survey, a clinical trial, a lab measurement, a marketing report. The math itself is rarely harder than middle-school arithmetic — ratios, proportions, percentages, unit conversions, means, medians, scatter plots, two-way tables, and basic probability. What trips students up is the reading. The College Board has spent two decades calibrating these prompts to reward students who slow down on the setup and punish students who rush to compute. ScoreRe
Practice questions in this drill set
Below are 6 practice questions targeting this exact sub-skill, ordered from easier to harder. Each question is tagged with its target score band so you can focus on questions that match the band you are working out of. Worked solutions are open by default — read each one even if you got the question right, because the way the solution is structured often reveals a faster path than the one you used.
-
A laptop originally priced at $795 is increased by 25%. What is the new price?
- A 795.00
- B 988.75
- C 998.75
- D 993.75
Worked solution
Answer: D — 993.75
Increase = 795 × (25/100) = 198.75. New price = 795 + 198.75 = $993.75.
-
A jacket originally priced at $640 is marked down by 40%. What is the sale price?
- A 389.00
- B 384.00
- C 379.00
- D 640.00
Worked solution
Answer: B — 384.00
Discount = 640 × (40/100) = 256.00. Sale price = 640 - 256.00 = $384.00.
-
A stock priced at $890 rises by 25% in one week, then falls by 25% the next week. What is the final price?
- A 839.38
- B 890.00
- C 834.38
- D 829.38
Worked solution
Answer: C — 834.38
After the first week: 890 × (1 + 25/100). After the second week: multiply by (1 - 25/100). The result is 890 × (1 - 625/10000) = $834.38. Note: this is less than the original, even though the percentages are equal — a common SAT trap.
-
A laptop originally priced at $795 is increased by 35%. What is the new price?
- A 795.00
- B 1,073.25
- C 1,068.25
- D 1,078.25
Worked solution
Answer: B — 1,073.25
Increase = 795 × (35/100) = 278.25. New price = 795 + 278.25 = $1,073.25.
-
A jacket originally priced at $895 is marked down by 20%. What is the sale price?
- A 711.00
- B 716.00
- C 895.00
- D 721.00
Worked solution
Answer: B — 716.00
Discount = 895 × (20/100) = 179.00. Sale price = 895 - 179.00 = $716.00.
-
A stock priced at $445 rises by 15% in one week, then falls by 15% the next week. What is the final price?
- A 445.00
- B 439.99
- C 429.99
- D 434.99
Worked solution
Answer: D — 434.99
After the first week: 445 × (1 + 15/100). After the second week: multiply by (1 - 15/100). The result is 445 × (1 - 225/10000) = $434.99. Note: this is less than the original, even though the percentages are equal — a common SAT trap.
Why this band assignment matters
Every question in this drill is tagged with a target score band — 400–500, 500–600, 600–700, or 700–800 — based on its difficulty and the patterns the College Board uses for questions at each level. If you are aiming to break out of a 580 plateau, the 600–700 questions in this drill are your highest-leverage practice. If you are chasing 750+, the 700–800 questions here are the ones that separate the top 10% of test takers from everyone else.
Use the band tags to filter your work. If you can confidently solve every 400–500 and 500–600 question without notes, move to the 600–700 set. If those land cleanly, the 700–800 set is your final boss. The worked solutions in this drill are written so that even the hardest questions become learnable patterns once you have seen the structure of the solve a few times.