Question

A dishwasher salesperson's commission is 40%. The salesperson receives a commission of $372. How many dollars worth of dishwashers did the salesperson sell?

Answer 1

The salesperson sold $930 worth of dishwashers.

Explanation:

We can reword this as $372 is 40% of what.

"Percent" or "%" means "out of 100" or "per 100", Therefore 40% can be written as `40/100`.

When dealing with percents the word "of" means "times" or "to multiply".

Finally, lets call the number we are looking for "n".

Putting this altogether we can write this equation and solve for `n` while keeping the equation balanced:

`$372 = 40/100 xx n`

`color(red)(100/40) xx $372 = color(red)(100/40) xx 40/100 xx n`

`($37200)/40 = color(red)(cancel(color(black)(100/40))) xx color(red)(cancel(color(black)(40/100))) xx n`

`$930 = n`