ACT · Pre-Algebra · Ratios, proportions, and percentages
Question act-q-00244
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The question
The price of an item decreased from $111 to $75. What was the percent change?
- 32%
- 36%
- −32%
- 48%
Show answer & worked solution
Answer: −32%
Worked solution. Percent change = (new − old)/old × 100% = (75 − 111) / 111 × 100% = -32%.
Why each wrong choice is wrong. The most common distractor uses the new value as the base instead of the original — a classic and reliable trap.
Test-day tactic. Always divide the change by the original price, not the new one. 'Percent change from' means 'with respect to'.
About this question type
These items mirror the SAT's ratio and percent items closely. The ACT tends to dress them in slightly more textbook-like phrasing, but the underlying math is identical.
You will see a question shaped like this one on roughly every other official ACT form, typically at the back end of the section, where the score gradient is steepest. Treat any miss in this subtopic as a signal to drill the subtopic page before you do another full practice test.