SAT · Problem Solving & Data Analysis · Percentages and percent change
Question sat-q-00138
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The question
The price of an item increased from $85 to $99. What was the percent change?
- −17%
- 31%
- 17%
- 14%
Show answer & worked solution
Answer: 17%
Worked solution. Percent change = (new − old)/old × 100% = (99 − 85) / 85 × 100% = 16%.
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
Items test percent of a quantity ("what is 18% of 250"), percent change ("the price rose from 80 to 92, what is the percent increase"), reverse percent ("after a 15% discount, the item costs $51 — what was the original price"), and successive percent changes ("a 10% raise then a 5% raise — what is the net percent change").
You will see a question shaped like this one on roughly every other official SAT 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.