A Japanese rock band made ¥3 million on their first album with sales of ¥12 million, and made ¥5 million on their second album with sales of ¥30 million. By approximately what percent did the ratio of profit to sales decrease from the first album to second album?  Choices:
A) 24 %
B) 27 %
C) 30 %
D) 33 %
E) 36 %

Rationale: solution : this is a percent decrease problem . we will use the formula : percent change = ( new – old ) / old x 100 to calculate the final answer . we first set up the ratios of profits to sales . the first ratio will be for the first album , and the second ratio will be for the next album . because all of the sales are in millions , we do not have to express all the trailing zeros in our ratios . first album profit / sales = 3 / 12 = 1 / 4 second album profit / sales = 5 / 30 = 1 / 6 we can simplify each ratio by multiplying each by the lcm of the two denominators , which is 12 . keep in mind that we are able to do this only because our answer choices are expressed in percents . first album profit / sales = ( 1 / 4 ) x 12 = 3 next 2 million profit / sales = ( 1 / 6 ) x 12 = 2 we can plug 3 and 2 into our percent change formula : ( 2 – 3 ) / 3 x 100 = - 1 / 3 x 100 so approximately a 33 % decrease . answer d .
Answer: D