Percent of Change

A little blurb about gambling has recently caught my eye in Newsweek. It says that gambling revenues dropped $1.78 billion this year, which is a 2.6% dip.

Your job:
1. Figure out how much the revenues were last year (original)
2. Figure out how much they are this year, after the 2.6% drop. (new)
Hint: Use the formula for percent of change. Remember that the original is 100%.

Traveling in Canada Part 1

During our stay in Pennsylvania we also took a trip up North to visit some friends of ours in Cobourg, Canada. Cobourg is a small town on the North shore of Lake Ontario. You can click the map on the left to get a better view of its location.

We arrived in Canada at a very exciting time, first because it was the eve of Canadian Thanksgiving, second becasue it was a few days before their election day.

The results of the election are the topic of this problem. According to the official results, the Conservative Party won with about 38% of the votes. From another website I learned that there are 23,401,064 registered voters in Canada, and about 59% of them actually voted in this election.
Your job:

1. Figure out how many people actually voted for the winning party.
   
2. Find out what percentage of registered voters voted for the winning party.
   Hint for #2: take your answer from #1, and the total number of registered voters, make it into a fraction, then turn the fraction into a percent
   

Submitted by Francisco

My dad's computer credit card problem

My dad got me and my sister a Widows Vista because our old one had a virus. The virus deleted all the memory & documents. It ruined the screen, printer, mouse, and keyboard. We bought Windows Vista, and it had everything except the printer. Vista came at a price of $799.99 without taxes. The printer was $149.99 without the taxes.

Your job is to:
1. find out the taxes (8.25% of the total price) and
2. figure out how much money my dad has to pay per month so he can finish paying in 18 months.

Submitted by Jasmine

The Shoe Problem

Yesterday I received $100, and decided to go buy shoes. At the the store I saw every pair cost $40 but not just that, each pair was discounted 50%. If each were 50% off, how many pairs can I get? Could I get more than two?

Huntington Park's Population

I was recently browsing the official website of the City of Huntington Park, home of Gage Middle School, and I stumbled upon some demographic information that got me thinking.
According to the site:

• Total population of HP: 61,348
• Hispanic population: 58, 636
• Registered voters: 13,137

These numbers made me wonder about percentages and languages. Your task is to answer the following questions:

1. What percentage of the residents of Huntington Park are Hispanic?
2. What percentage of the residents of Huntington Park are registered to vote?
3. Do you think the large number of Hispanics living in the city means that the city's website should be bilingual? (see poll on the right)
   

Email me the answers to the first 2 questions. To answer the third, you can respond to the poll on the right.

HINT: To figure out the percents, start by figuring out the fraction (how many Hispanic out of how many total, and how many registered to vote out of how many total) then turn the fraction into a decimal, then a percent. You can use a calculator if you prefer.

The Real Mac Pro

On Sunday, December 23, Mr. Billett's 6-year-old G4 stopped working once and for all.

So the next day we went to the Apple store at the Glendale Galleria, and picked up a brand new Mac Pro to replace it. The Apple store was a lot of fun - we tried the iPhone, the new iPod nano, and got expert advice from Josh, a friendly sales associate. Lucky for us, Apple offers an educational discount. The regular price for the Mac Pro is $2499, but with the educators' discount, we paid $2299.

Your job is to figure out about what percentage was our savings. It may seem complicated at first, but proportions, our good old friends, will come to the rescue. Here's how:
Here is another hint to make your job easier: You can round the total price and the sale price to the nearest hundred.