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SSC CGL Discount & MP

Study Material — 10 PYQs (2018–2024) · Concept Notes · Shortcuts

SSC CGL Discount & MP is a frequently tested subtopic — 10 previous year questions from 2018–2024 papers are included below with concept notes, key rules and shortcut tricks.

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Previous Year Questions

SSC CGL Discount & MP — Past Exam Questions

10 questions from actual SSC CGL papers · all shown free · click option to reveal solution

Exam Q 12018Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper marks a sweater at ₹800. He offers a discount of 15% on the marked price. What is the selling price of the sweater?

Exam Q 22019Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper marks an article at ₹2,500. He offers a discount of 20% on the marked price. However, he still makes a profit of 25% on the cost price. If he gives an additional discount of 5% on the already discounted price to a bulk buyer, what is the cost price of the article?

Exam Q 32020Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper marks an article at ₹2,500. He offers a discount of 12% on the marked price. However, he still makes a profit of 25% on the cost price. If he gives an additional discount of 4% on the already discounted price to a bulk buyer, what is the cost price of the article?

Exam Q 42024Previous Year Pattern

A merchant offers a discount of 30% on marked price. After giving this discount, he earns a profit of 5%. If he wants to earn a profit of 20% instead, what discount percentage should he offer on the same marked price?

Exam Q 52024Previous Year Pattern

A merchant offers a discount of 30% on the marked price. Even after this discount, he makes a profit of 40% on the cost price. If the cost price of an item is ₹350, what is the marked price?

Exam Q 62024Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper buys goods at ₹60 per kg. He marks them at ₹100 per kg. He sells 80% of the stock at a discount of 20% and the remaining 20% at a discount of 10%. What is his overall profit percentage?

Exam Q 72024Previous Year Pattern

A retailer buys articles at ₹80 per piece. He marks them at a price such that after giving a discount of 25%, he still makes a profit of 20%. Later, he decides to give an additional 10% discount on the already discounted price. What is his new profit or loss percentage?

Exam Q 82024Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper marks up goods by 80% above cost price. He then offers two successive discounts of 25% and 20% on the marked price. If the final selling price is ₹432, what is the cost price?

Exam Q 92019Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper marks up goods by 80% above cost price. He offers two successive discounts of 25% and 15% to customers. If a customer pays ₹918 for an article, what is the cost price of that article?

Exam Q 102024Previous Year Pattern

A shopkeeper marks goods 60% above cost price. He gives a discount of x% on marked price. If the profit earned is 8%, what is the value of x?

Concept Notes

Discount & MP— Rules & Concept

Core ConceptRead this first — the foundation of the topic
Rule 2

Profit or Loss is ALWAYS calculated on Cost Price, NOT on Marked Price

Rule 3

SP = MP − Discount Rule 4: If no discount is given, then SP = MP. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Formula BlockMemorise — at least one formula appears in every paper

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Discount = (Discount% / 100) × MP
SP = MP × (1 − Discount% / 100)
SP = MP × [(100 − Discount%) / 100]
Profit% = [(SP − CP) / CP] × 100
MP = CP × [(100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%)]

Key Master Formula:

SP = CP × [(100 + Profit%) / 100]
SP = MP × [(100 − Discount%) / 100]
So: CP × (100 + Profit%) / 100 = MP × (100 − Discount%) / 100
This gives: MP / CP = (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%)

Memorize this ratio — it solves 80% of MP-Discount questions directly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Exam PatternsWhat examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— HOW IT GETS ASKED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL asks these types most often: 1. Find MP when CP, profit%, and discount% are given. 2. Two successive discounts — find single equivalent discount. 3. Shopkeeper marks up X% and gives Y% discount — find profit or loss. 4.

Find discount% when CP, MP, and profit% are given. 5. Fake discount traps — item marked high then discounted to look like a deal. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ShortcutsUse these to save 30–60 seconds per question

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRICK 1 — Two Successive Discounts: If discounts are d1% and d2%, the single equivalent discount is: Equivalent Discount% = d1 + d2 − (d1 × d2) / 100 Example: 20% and 10% successive discount = 20 + 10 − (20×10)/100 = 30 − 2 = 28% TRICK 2 — Markup then Discount (Profit/Loss shortcut): If MP is marked x% above CP and discount given is y%: Profit% or Loss% = x − y − (x × y)/100 If result is positive → Profit. If negative → Loss. Example: Marked 30% above CP, discount 20% = 30 − 20 − (30×20)/100 = 10 − 6 = 4% Profit TRICK 3 — MP/CP Ratio: MP/CP = (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%) Use this when two of these three values are known. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Worked ExampleSolve this step-by-step before moving on

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: A shopkeeper marks his goods 40% above CP and gives a 15% discount. Find his profit%. Method — Using Trick 2: Profit% = x − y − (x × y)/100 = 40 − 15 − (40 × 15)/100 = 25 − 600/100 = 25 − 6 = 19% Answer: Profit = 19% Verification with numbers: Let CP = 100 MP = 140 Discount = 15% of 140 = 21 SP = 140 − 21 = 119 Profit = 119 − 100 = 19. Confirmed! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: CP of an article is Rs. 500.

The shopkeeper wants a profit of 20% after giving a 25% discount. Find the Marked Price. Method — Using MP/CP Formula: MP/CP = (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%) MP/500 = (100 + 20) / (100 − 25) MP/500 = 120 / 75 MP = 500 × 120/75 MP = 500 × 1.6 MP = Rs. 800 Answer: Marked Price = Rs. 800 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Exam TrapsCommon mistakes students make — avoid these

— THE #1 TRAP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Students calculate discount on CP instead of MP. WRONG thinking: Discount = 10% of CP CORRECT rule: Discount = 10% of MP Also, many students add two discounts directly. 20% + 10% = 30% is WRONG. Use the formula: 20 + 10 − (20×10/100) = 28%. Always use the formula for successive discounts.

Key Points to Remember

  • Discount is always calculated on Marked Price (MP), never on Cost Price.
  • Profit and Loss are always calculated on Cost Price (CP), never on MP.
  • Formula: SP = MP × (100 − Discount%) / 100
  • Master Ratio: MP/CP = (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%)
  • Two successive discounts d1 and d2 → Equivalent = d1 + d2 − (d1 × d2)/100
  • Markup x% above CP, give y% discount → Net result = x − y − (xy/100)%
  • If result of Trick 2 is positive it is Profit; if negative it is Loss.
  • Marked Price is also called List Price — both terms mean the same thing in exams.
  • When no discount is offered, Selling Price equals Marked Price.
  • Formula: MP = CP × (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%) — use when CP is given.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • Discount% is always applied on Marked Price — this is the most tested rule in SSC CGL Profit & Loss questions.
  • Equivalent single discount for two successive discounts d1% and d2% = d1 + d2 − (d1 × d2)/100.
  • If a shopkeeper marks up 25% and gives 20% discount, net result = 25 − 20 − (25×20/100) = 0% — no profit no loss.
  • MP/CP ratio formula: MP/CP = (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%) — directly used to find MP or CP.
  • Three successive discounts of 10%, 10%, 10% are NOT equal to 30% discount — actual equivalent is 27.1%.
  • If discount% equals markup%, the shopkeeper always makes a LOSS, not zero profit.
  • SP = CP × (100 + Profit%) / 100 and SP = MP × (100 − Discount%) / 100 — both expressions equal SP and can be equated.
Practice MCQs

Discount & MP — Practice Questions

47graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 47

All MCQs →
Practice 1easy

A merchant offers a discount of 15% on the marked price of ₹1200. What amount does the customer pay?

Practice 2easy

A shopkeeper marks an article at ₹500. He gives a discount of 20% on the marked price. What is the selling price?

Practice 3easy

The marked price of a book is ₹500. After giving a discount of 20%, the shopkeeper still makes a profit of 25% on the cost price. What is the cost price of the book?

Practice 4easy

If the selling price of an item is ₹450 and the discount given is 10%, what is the marked price?

Practice 5easy

A retailer marks up the cost price by 60% and then offers a discount of 25% on the marked price. What is his profit percentage?

Practice 6easy

The selling price of an item is ₹750 after a discount of 25% on the marked price. What is the marked price?

Practice 7easy

A shopkeeper marks an article at ₹800. He gives a discount of 15% on the marked price. What is the selling price?

Practice 8easy

The marked price of a shirt is ₹1000. A customer gets two successive discounts of 10% and 15%. What is the final selling price?

Practice 9easy

A retailer buys an item for ₹400 and marks it up by 50%. He then offers a discount of 20% on the marked price. What is his profit percentage?

Practice 10easy

A merchant sells an item at ₹1200 after giving a discount of 25% on the marked price. What is the marked price?

Practice 11easy

A merchant offers a discount of 10% on the marked price of a shirt. If the customer pays ₹540 after the discount, what was the marked price?

Practice 12easy

If the marked price of a book is ₹800 and it is sold at ₹600, what is the discount percentage?

Practice 13easy

An article costs ₹400 to the shopkeeper. He marks it up by 50% and then offers a discount of 20%. What is his profit percentage?

Practice 14easy

A shopkeeper marks an article at ₹800. He gives a discount of 15% on the marked price. What is the selling price?

Practice 15easy

A merchant offers two successive discounts of 20% and 10% on an article marked at ₹1000. What is the final selling price?

Practice 16easy

The marked price of a book is ₹250. After giving a discount of 12%, the shopkeeper still makes a profit of 20% on the cost price. What is the cost price of the book?

Practice 17easy

A trader marks his goods 40% above the cost price and gives a discount of 10% on the marked price. If the cost price is ₹600, what is the profit made?

Practice 18easy

A store gives successive discounts of 10% and 20% on an article marked at ₹2000. What is the final selling price?

Practice 19medium

A shopkeeper marks up goods by 50% above cost price. He then gives a discount of 20% on the marked price. What is his overall profit or loss percentage?

Practice 20medium

A merchant offers a discount of 25% on the marked price of an item. Even after giving this discount, he makes a profit of 20%. If the cost price is ₹600, what is the marked price?

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60-Second Revision — Discount & MP

  • Remember: Discount is on MP, Profit/Loss is on CP — never mix these up.
  • Formula: MP/CP = (100 + Profit%) / (100 − Discount%) — this single formula solves most MP questions.
  • Trick: Markup x%, Discount y% → Net% = x − y − xy/100. Positive = Profit, Negative = Loss.
  • Trick: Two successive discounts d1 and d2 → Single equivalent = d1 + d2 − d1×d2/100. Never add directly.
  • Trap: Never calculate discount on CP. Never add successive discounts directly. Both are exam traps.
  • Formula: SP = MP × (100 − Discount%) / 100 — use this when MP and discount% are given.
  • Quick check: If markup% = discount%, there is always a net LOSS, not zero profit.
←Basic Profit & LossFalse Weight / Fraudulent Dealer→
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