PRACTICE DRILL 5—PERCENT CHANGE

Remember to time yourself

during this drill!

1. During a severe winter in Ontario, the temperature dropped suddenly to 10 degrees below zero. If the temperature in Ontario before this cold spell occurred
was 10 degrees above zero, by what percent did the temperature drop?

(A) 25%
(B) 50%
(C) 100%
(D) 150%
(E) 200%

%change = × 100

2. Fatty’s Burger wants to attract more customers by increasing the size of its patties. From now on Fatty’s patties are going to be 4 ounces larger than before.
If the size of its new patty is 16 ounces, by approximately what percent has the patty increased?

(A) 25%
(B) 27%
(C) 33%
(D) 75%
(E) 80%

Don’t forget to check your

answers on this page.

Plugging In
The SSAT will often ask you questions about real-life situations where the numbers have been replaced with variables. One of the
easiest ways to tackle these questions is with a powerful technique called Plugging In.

Mark is two inches taller than John, who is four inches shorter than Terry. If t represents Terry’s height in inches, then in terms of t, an expression for Mark’s height is
(A) t+6
(B) t+4
(C) t+2
(D) t
(E) t−2

The problem with this question is that we’re not used to thinking of people’s heights in terms of variables. Have you ever met
someone who was t inches tall?

Take the Algebra Away,

and Arithmetic Is All
That’s Left
When you Plug In for variables,
you won’t need to
write equations and won’t
have to solve algebra
problems. Doing simple
arithmetic is always easier
than doing algebra.

Whenever you see variables used in the question and in the answer choices, just Plug In a number to replace the variable.

1. Choose a number for t.

 2. Using that number, figure out Mark’s and John’s heights.
3. Put a box around Mark’s height because that’s what the question asked you for.
4. Plug your number for t into the answer choices and choose the one that gives you the number you found for Mark’s
height.

Here’s How It Works

For Terry’s height, let’s pick 60 inches. This means that t = 60.

Remember, there is no right or wrong number to pick. 50 would work just as well.

But given that Terry is 60 inches tall, now we can figure out that, because John is four inches shorter than Terry, John’s height must
be (60 − 4), or 56 inches.

The other piece of information we learn from the problem is that Mark is two inches taller than John. If John’s height is 56 inches,
that means Mark must be 58 inches tall.

Here’s what we’ve got:

Terry 60 inches = t
John 56 inches
Mark 58 inches

Now, the question asks for Mark’s height, which is 58 inches. The last step is to go through the answer choices substituting 60 for t
and choose the one that equals 58.