5 CAT Percentage Questions you should solve

Introduction:
Percentage is one topic that appears underpins CAT Arithmetic essentially. It essentially is the first topic that you study in CAT Arithmetic and is the topic that finds near universal application in the whole area. In fact, right from our childhood, we have been calculating percentages in some form or the other and percentages form a ubiquitous part ofour everyday lives. By solving these five percentage questions, you learn the basic applications for this topic and how does this topic appear in different exams.

Question 1:A report consists of 20 sheets each of 55 lines and each such line consists of 65 characters. This report is reduced onto sheets each of 65 lines such that each line consists of 70 characters. The percentage reduction in number of sheets is closest to:
(a) 20%
(b) 5%
(c) 30%
(d) 35%

Question 2: The number of votes not cast for the PNC Party increased by 25% in the National General Election over those not cast for it in the previous Assembly Polls, and the PNC Party lost by a majority twice as large as that by which it had won the Assembly Polls. If a total 2,60,000 people voted each time, how many voted for the PNC Party in the previous Assembly Polls?
(a) 1,10,000
(b) 1,50,000
(c) 1,40,000
(d) 1,20,000

Question 3: 2/5th of the voters promise to vote for A and the rest promised to vote for B. Of these, on the last day 15% of the voters went back of their promise to vote for A and 25% of voters went back of their promise to vote for B, and A lost by 200 votes. Then, the total number of voters is:
(a) 10000
(b) 11000
(c) 9000
(d) 9500

Question 4: A person who has a certain amount with him goes to market. He can buy 50 oranges or 40 mangoes. He retains 10% of the amount for taxi fares and buys 20 mangoes and of the balance, he purchases oranges. Number of oranges he can purchase is:
(a) 36
(b) 40
(c) 15
(d) 20

Question 5: Forty per cent of the employees of a certain company are men and 75% of the men earn more than Rs. 25,000 per year. If 45% of the company’s employees earn more than Rs. 25,000 per year, what fraction of the women employed by the company earn Rs. 25,000 or less per year?
(a) 2/11
(b) 1/4
(c) 1/3
(d) 3/4

Extra tips for CAT Percentage Questions
• The above questions illustrate the kind of problems that appear in MBA entrance exams. You can see from the problems above these questions are not purely based on the concept of percentages and require you to use some logic to identify the key considerations in the questions.
• Most of the CAT percentage questions will combine more than one topic in the problems and will require you to use some degree of logic to make equations in the problems.
• As with all CAT Arithmetic topics, the basic concepts (and when we say basic, we mean the absolute basic) can be found in school books.
• For bulk practicing problems for this topic, you can refer to RS Agarwal. Another good resource to practice problems and learn basic concepts for this topic is the Quantitative Aptitude book by Abhijit Guha.