Discount
About 7 min · Elementary Mathematics · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 471 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Discount is a reduction in the marked price (list price) of an item. In SSC GD examinations, discount problems appear in the Elementary Mathematics section, testing your ability to calculate the selling price after applying single or successive discounts, or to work backwards from given conditions to find the original marked price or discount percentage.
Key ideas
- Marked Price (MP): The printed or listed price of an item before any discount is applied. Also called List Price or Tag Price.
- Discount: The reduction offered on the marked price, usually expressed as a percentage of the marked price. Discount = MP − SP.
- Selling Price (SP): The actual price at which the item is sold to the customer after applying the discount. SP = MP − Discount.
- Single Discount: A one-time percentage reduction on the marked price. If discount is d%, then SP = MP × (100 − d)/100.
- Successive Discounts: Two or more discounts applied one after another. Each subsequent discount is calculated on the price remaining after the previous discount, not on the original marked price.
Watch out for
- Adding successive discounts directly: Students often add 20% + 10% = 30% for successive discounts. Wrong! Successive discounts apply sequentially, so you must multiply the remaining percentages: (100 − 20)/100 × (100 − 10)/100. The correct equivalent single discount is 28%, not 30%.
- Applying discount on cost price instead of marked price: Discount is always calculated on the marked price (list price), not the cost price. If a question mentions both CP and discount, first determine the marked price, then apply the discount.
- Confusing discount amount with discount percentage: Discount percentage is always calculated as (Discount/MP) × 100. If you're given a discount amount, divide it by the marked price and multiply by 100 to get the percentage—don't assume the absolute discount is the percentage.
Quick reference
- SP = MP − Discount or SP = MP × (100 − d)/100 for single discount d%.
- Two successive discounts d₁% and d₂% = single discount of [d₁ + d₂ − (d₁ × d₂)/100]%.
- Discount is always on marked price, profit/loss is always on cost price.
- For quick mental math: 10% discount → multiply by 0.9; 20% → multiply by 0.8; 25% → multiply by 0.75.
- Successive discounts cannot be added; always apply step-by-step or use the formula.
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. A shopkeeper marks his goods 25% above the cost price and allows a discount of 10%. What is his profit percentage?
2. A shirt with a marked price of Rs 800 is sold at two successive discounts of 20% and 15%. What is the final selling price?
3. A trader allows a discount of 15% on the marked price. If he still makes a profit of 19%, by what percentage above the cost price did he mark his goods?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.
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