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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

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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 & Loss False Weight / Fraudulent Dealer→

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