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For the former, we read this: ?When she works with an assistant she makes 80% more bears per week. ? To make things easy, let?s say that Jane alone makes 100 bears. With the assistant, she makes 180.

Looking for hours, we read this: ?When she works with an assistant she . . . Works 10 percent fewer hours each week. ? So let?s say that she works 100 hours per week when Choice (D) is correct.

Step 4: Confirm Your Answer Make sure to reread the question, confirming that you read those complicated rules correctly. 25. E) Step 1: Analyze the Question For four days, a store sells the same portion of its remaining stock each day. In other words, it?s not selling the same amount each day, but the same portion of each day?s stock. We?re given no way to know exactly how much stock the store starts with. But the answer choices don?t have any variables.

Whenever variables cancel, leaving only numbers in the answer choices, Picking Numbers is an approach you should consider. Note that the answers are fractions. So despite the word ?percent? in the question stem, 100 might not be as safe a choice when Picking Numbers as would a common denominator. Step 2: State the Task What fraction of its original stock has it sold?

An 80% increase in bears produced in the same number of hours would mean an 80% increase in bears/hour. But the number of hours does change?it is reduced by 10%. So 80% more bears are made in a little less time than before, so her per-hour output must be a little higher than 80%.

Only one answer, (C), is a little higher than 80%. So (C) must be correct! Step 4: Confirm Your Answer Had you chosen (E), which is her new output rate as a percentage of her old rate, confirming your answer would have uncovered that error. 28. (B) Step 1: Analyze the Question John spends 40% on one thing and 30% less than that on another. Since the answer choices are percents, picking 100 as a number is a good idea. Some answers are widely spread out.

When answers are spread out, estimation and logic are also great approaches. Step 2: State the Task What percent of last month?s earnings did John have left over? We now know that we?d pick $100 as his earnings. (We care much more about picking manageable numbers than about giving imaginary people a living wage. ) It?s also important to focus on the fact that we are solving for what he has left, not what he spent. Step 3: Approach Strategically Some answers could be logically eliminated right away. After spending 40% of his earnings on rent, he?d have 60% left.

Then he goes and spends some more. Therefore, no answer 60% or greater could be possible. That eliminates (D) and (E) very quickly.

And since simple combinations of percents are rarely the right answer, the odds of the right answer being ?subtract 40% and then subtract 30%? are very small. That makes 100% 40% 30% = 30% a safe elimination as well. So (A) is gone.

We could make a 50/50 guess very quickly on this problem, which is sometimes a good thing to do if you are falling behind pace. But let?s say that you had the time to solve. Picking $100 for his earnings, we see that he spends $40 on rent. He spends 30% less than $40 on a dishwasher; ?30% less than something? is the same as ?70% of that something. ? So John spent .

7($40), or $28, on a dishwasher. Taking $40 and $28, or $68, away f