2/27/2014

Reverse Percentage Increase and Decrease - graduatewings.co.uk

Home | Member login >> | Sign up >>

24/7 Support: Contact us here.

Graduate Jobs

Free Reasoning Tests

Graduate Online Tests

Forums

My Career

Reverse Percentage Increase and Decrease

Many people who are asked to complete numerical recruitment assessments as a part of job interview or selection exercise are frequently caught out on reverse percentage questions. In fact, only few would apply correct technique and methods to work out such problems. In simple terms, reverse percents are mathematical functions used to solve problems related to finding out unknown quantities after they have increased or decreased by certain amounts. For example, you know that the price of house was 320,000 in 2013 which represented 10% raise from 2012. You would use reverse percent to find the value of house in 2012. If you are not acquainted or used to these concepts it may be hard to know how to multiply, divide or what operation to implement. Below you can find practice examples along with the advice that will give you profound understanding and clarity of how to distinguish and get your head around of these kinds of problems in your recruitment tests.

Reverse Percentage Increase

The above concept is one of the most important topics to master for your numeracy aptitude tests. It referrers to calculating algebraic challenges related to finding value X after it had increased by certain percent amount. For example, assume that amount X raised by 30% to new figure 70. To find for X you need to apply following formula 70 / (1 + 0.30). To demonstrate this on real psychometric test example consider the question and inspect the figure below.

If the iPhones sales in September rose by 15% from previous month then what was the number of iPhones sold during the August? As indicated above, to solve this you need to make use of reverse percentage increase that is 200 / (1 + 0.15). However, some test takers that are not acquainted with this method may calculate 200 x (1 0.15) which is the incorrect way. Note that this approach rather refers to calculating proportional decrease which is to be applied to situations where you are asked to reduce given amount by certain proportion. Hence, pay attention and read carefully what the question is asking you to do so that you use correct operation.

Reverse Percentage Decrease

Below we will review basis formula to deal with reverse proportional decrease. When you are required to work out such mathematical function for instance solve for value M that has decreased say by 25% over some period of time to value N which equals to 90 then the formula to use to solve for N would be written in following way 90 / (1 0.25) = 120. To illustrate this on real example consider the question below. If the BlackBerry trades went down by 20% from August to September then what was the number of BlackBerry sales in August? If you inspect the above graph you can see that in September trading company sold 100 BlackBerry iPhones. Hence, you may set up your equation as follows 100 / (1 0.20) to calculate sales for August. Fairly simple isnt it.

Quick Tips
Note that the faster and quicker way to put the above into practice is to mentally subtract given percentage in the above case 0.20 from 1 and only perform calculation of 100 / 0.80 on your calculator. Similarly, for reverse increase add together in your head 1 and 0.20 and then calculate on your device only 100 / 1.20.

About GraduateWings About Us Advertise Contact Us Affiliates Recruiter Login

Online Reasoning Tests Graduate Reasoning Tests Try Free Tests Numerical Reasoning Verbal Reasoning Logical Reasoning Personality Assessments

Graduate Jobs Graduate Jobs in Finance Graduate Jobs in Engineering & IT Graduate Jobs in Consulting Graduate Jobs in Marketing Graduate Jobs in HR Graduate Jobs in Teaching Volunteering work

Helpful Information Job Interviews Assessment Centres How to write great CV

Copyright GraduateWings 2010-2012 All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Payments

http://www.graduatewings.co.uk/reverse-percentage-increase-and-decrease/

1/1