Question 1
An article costs ₹800 and is sold at a profit of 25%.
What is the selling price?
- 1008
- 1000
- 1005
- 1010
- 200
Show the worked solution
- Profit = 25% of ₹800 = ₹200.
- SP = ₹800 + ₹200 = ₹1000.
- Answer: 1000.
Exam path · Profit & Loss
Profit and loss questions, against a real clock
Profit and loss questions hand you two of cost price, selling price and percentage, and ask for the third. The percentage is always taken on cost price unless the paper says otherwise, and that one rule settles most of them. In a bank prelims you have roughly forty-five seconds each, so the target is a single line of arithmetic rather than an equation you solve.
Profit, loss and discount are worth two to three marks in almost every banking and SSC prelims paper, and they are among the most reliably scoreable questions on it — the arithmetic is small and the patterns repeat. What costs candidates the marks is not difficulty but seconds: writing SP = CP × (100 + p)/100, rearranging it, then dividing. The drill below is timed precisely so you stop rearranging and start recognising.
Try it against the clock. Profit & Loss runs at 35s easy, 45s medium and 60s hard. The clock is stamped and judged on our server, so the limit you see is the deadline that is actually enforced — and it starts when you tap Start, not while the question is loading.
How to solve profit and loss questions in one line
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Decide what the percentage sits on
Profit and loss percentages are on cost price. Discount percentages are on marked price. Getting this wrong is not an arithmetic slip — it produces a clean, plausible, wrong number that will be among the options.
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Turn the percentage into a multiplier, not an equation
A 25% profit means SP = 1.25 × CP, so CP = SP ÷ 1.25 = SP × 4/5. Working in fractions (25% = 1/4, 20% = 1/5, 12.5% = 1/8) removes the division entirely: ₹6000 at 50% profit is ₹6000 × 2/3 = ₹4000, done in your head.
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For successive discounts, multiply — never add
20% then 10% off is not 30% off. It is 0.8 × 0.9 = 0.72, so 28%. The single-figure equivalent of successive discounts a and b is a + b − ab/100, and 30% will always be sitting there as an option.
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Sanity-check the direction before you tap
Profit means SP is above CP; loss means below. A one-second glance at whether your answer is on the right side of the given number kills most careless errors, and it is faster than re-deriving.
The percentages worth knowing as fractions
| Percentage | Use it as |
|---|---|
| 12.5% | 1/8 — so a 12.5% profit means SP = 9/8 of CP |
| 16.66% | 1/6 — a 16.66% loss means SP = 5/6 of CP |
| 20% | 1/5 — CP = SP × 5/6 when profit is 20% |
| 25% | 1/4 — CP = SP × 4/5 when profit is 25% |
| 33.33% | 1/3 — CP = SP × 3/4 when profit is 33.33% |
| 50% | 1/2 — CP = SP × 2/3 when profit is 50% |
3 real profit and loss questions, with worked solutions
Generated by the same engine that mints the ComputePrep daily. Each answer is computed from the numbers printed in the question, and the walkthrough below each one is the engine's own working — not a solution written afterwards. Reload this page's live drill and you get different numbers.
Question 2
A jacket is marked at ₹3150.
The shop allows a discount of 20%.
What does a customer actually pay?
- 630
- 2510
- 2520
- 3150
- 2506
Show the worked solution
- Discount = 20% of ₹3150 = ₹630.
- Amount paid = ₹3150 − ₹630 = ₹2520 — the discount is the reduction, not the price.
- Answer: 2520.
Question 3
An article costs ₹4800 and is sold at a loss of 40%.
What is the selling price?
- 6720
- 4800
- 1920
- 4840
- 2880
Show the worked solution
- Loss = 40% of ₹4800 = ₹1920.
- SP = ₹4800 − ₹1920 = ₹2880.
- Answer: 2880.
Common mistakes this drill is built from
The wrong options are not random numbers. Each one is the result of a specific careless error for this topic, so picking one tells you which habit is costing you marks.
Taking the percentage on the selling price
The commonest error in the whole topic. If an article sells for ₹6000 at 50% profit, the cost is not ₹3000 — it is ₹4000, because the 50% is 50% of the cost, not of the sale. ₹3000 is always among the options.
Adding successive discounts
Two discounts of 20% and 10% give 28%, not 30%. The gap is small enough to look like rounding and large enough to be a different option.
Answering the question the setter did not ask
Half of these questions ask for cost price and half for selling price or profit percent. Under a clock it is easy to compute correctly and then tap the number you computed on the way, which is also on the list.
Why your answer came out wrong
The specific wrong numbers this topic produces, and what each one tells you about the step you took. If you have just got a question wrong and want to know which habit did it, start here.
I got 30% for successive discounts of 20% and 10% — why is that wrong?
Successive discounts multiply, they never add. Two cuts of 20% and 10% leave 0.8 × 0.9 = 0.72 of the marked price, so the single equivalent discount is 28%, not 30%. On a marked price of ₹2,000 you pay ₹1,440, not ₹1,400. The formula is a + b − ab/100, and 30 will be printed as an option.
An article sold at 25% profit for ₹500 — why is the cost price not ₹375?
Because the 25% sits on the cost price, not the selling price. Cost price = 500 ÷ 1.25 = ₹400. Taking 25% of ₹500 and subtracting gives ₹375, which is a clean, plausible, wrong number. Both ₹375 and ₹400 will be among the options.
My arithmetic is right but the answer is still marked wrong — why?
You almost certainly answered a different question. The paper asks for cost price when you found selling price, for profit percent when you found the profit in rupees, or for the loss on the whole lot when you computed it per unit. Read the final line again after you calculate, not before.
FAQ
Are profit and loss questions asked in IBPS and SBI prelims?
Yes. Profit, loss and discount is a standard arithmetic topic in the quantitative aptitude section of IBPS PO and Clerk, SBI PO and Clerk, RRB and SSC papers, usually worth two to three marks in prelims and more in mains.
How long should a profit and loss question take?
About 35 to 60 seconds in prelims, which is exactly the window this drill enforces: 35 seconds on easy, 45 on medium and 60 on hard, judged on the server. If a question is taking you longer than a minute, the fix is usually the fraction method rather than more practice.
Is the percentage taken on cost price or selling price?
Profit percent and loss percent are always on cost price unless the question explicitly says otherwise. Discount percent is on marked price. Mixing the two is the single most common source of wrong answers in this topic.
Do the practice questions repeat?
No. Every question is generated fresh and its answer is computed from the numbers printed in the question, so nothing is drawn from a fixed bank and nothing can be memorised or leaked between users.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
It is free with no account. You can drill profit and loss as often as you like without signing up or giving an email address.
Practise the next topic
- All 23 drill types — the full rotation with every published time limit.
- Percentage questions for bank exam papers — percentage questions for bank exam, timed.
- Average questions — average questions, timed.
- Vedic maths shortcuts — the seven sutras that make a 15-second answer possible.
- How to improve calculation speed — the six-week arc these drills fit into.
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