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Profit and Loss is the most reliably examined piece of CAT arithmetic, and the one where careless reading costs the most marks, nearly every wrong answer comes from computing a percentage on the wrong base, usually cost price where the question said marked price. The mathematics is not the difficulty. Working through a large volume of these builds the habit of identifying the base before starting the calculation, which is what actually converts into marks.
A shopkeeper purchases a table for a certain price and then spends an additional 20% of that price on repairs. He marks the table's price at Rs 15000 and sells it with a 15% discount. He achieves a profit percentage of 25% on the sale. What was the original cost he paid for the table (excluding the repair costs)?
Rs 9,500
Rs 8,600
Rs 8,500
Rs 11,500
If a person sells two articles at Rs. 1500 each, gaining 20% on one and losing 20% on the other, what is the overall result?
4% gain
4% loss
No gain no loss
5% gain
A trader sells oil at a 1% loss but deceives by providing 900g instead of 1kg. What is his overall profit or loss percentage?
10% gain
9% gain
8.88% gain
None of these
An article is bought for Rs 800 and sold at a loss of 15%. Find the selling price.
Rs 680
Rs 720
Rs 750
Rs 780
27 kg
21 kg
15 kg
30 kg
Rajnish purchased an item with a 25% discount on the printed price and sold it with a 10% discount on the printed price. What is his profit percentage?
10
15
17.5
20
None of the above
₹ 90,000
₹ 25,000
₹ 45,000
₹ 40,000
Two books are sold for Rs.500 each. One has a profit of 25%, while the other incurs a loss of 20%. The selling price of the second book is adjusted to achieve a profit that is 15% greater than that of the first book. What is the new selling price?
A man sells 5 articles for ₹15 and makes a profit of 20%. Find his gain or loss percent if he sells 8 such articles for ₹18.40.
2.22% profit
2.22% loss
8% loss
8% profit
202.5
225
200
197.5
₹3,00,000
₹3,20,000
₹3,60,000
₹4,00,000
A manufacturer sells a sofa set to a distributor at a profit of 20%. The distributor sells it to a retailer at a profit of 25%. The retailer finally sells it to a customer at a profit of 60%. If the customer pays ₹7200 for the sofa set, what is the manufacturing cost (in ₹)?
2000
2500
3000
3500
₹72
₹80
₹90
₹76
Riya sells a gadget to Karan for Rs. 4680, incurring a 22% loss. Karan then sells it to Meera. If Riya had sold the gadget to Karan at Meera’s purchase price, she would have made an 18% profit. What is Karan’s profit, in rupees?
Preeti purchased 10 kg of gulab jamuns. She packed them in two boxes - A (4 kg) and B (6 kg). She sold box A at a profit equal to the cost price of 3 kg of gulab jamuns and box B at a loss equal to the cost price of 2 kg of gulab jamuns. What was the ratio of the rates (in Rs/kg) at which she sold the gulab jamuns in the boxes A and B?
3 : 1
21 : 8
7 : 2
21 : 16
If an article is sold at a discount of p/2%, a profit of p/2% is realized. But if it is sold at a discount of p%, a loss of p/4% is incurred. If it is known that p is positive, then find the percentage of profit made on the article when it is sold at the discount of p/4%.
25
30
35
40
On selling a chair at 8% loss and a table at 12% gain, Mohan gains Rs. 14. If instead he sells the chair at 8% gain and the table at 8% gain, he gains Rs. 18. What is the cost price of the table in Rupees?
120
140
150
160
The selling price of a gadget is set to ensure a 35% profit over its cost. If the cost price had been 20% less and the gadget had been sold for Rs 18 less than this original selling price, the resulting profit would have been 50%. The original selling price, in rupees, is
150
162
168
180
A shopkeeper sells milk chocolates at 6, 10, 14, …; white at 4, 6, 8, …; dark at 8, 16, 24, …. If cost prices are 100, 80, 120 respectively for one bar each, what minimum (same for each) to get 10% profit overall?
39 of each type
44 of each type
46 of each type
55 of each type
A merchant can buy goods at the rate of Rs. 20 per good. The particular good is part of an overall collection and the value is linked to the number of items that are already on the market. So, the merchant sells the first good for Rs. 2, second one for Rs. 4, third for Rs. 6…and so on. If he wants to make an overall profit of at least 40%, what is the minimum number of goods he should sell?
24
18
27
32
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What CAT asks in Profit and Loss, the mistakes that cost the most marks, and how to practise it.
Cost price, selling price and marked price relationships; successive discounts; profit and loss percentages; false weights and dishonest dealers; and partnership-style questions where profit is shared. It frequently appears combined with percentages or ratio rather than on its own.
Applying a percentage to the wrong base, discount is on marked price, profit is on cost price, and margin questions sometimes define it on selling price. Reading the base off the question before starting removes most errors in this topic.
No. Assuming cost price is 100 and working forward handles almost every question in this topic without a single memorised formula, and it is far more robust under exam pressure than trying to recall which variant applies.
Every question here has been checked against a worked solution before being published, and anything without a complete solution is not shown at all. The bank mixes questions written for CAT-level practice with questions from actual CAT papers; the previous-year questions are collected separately under CAT PYQs. The solutions themselves open in practice mode once you sign up, which is free.
