Question

# Which number is $60\%$ less than 80?(a) 48(b) 42(c) 32(d) 12

Hint: To find the number which is $60\%$ less than 80 we are first going to find $60\%$ of 80 then subtract the result of this $60\%$ of 80 from 80. The result of this subtraction will give us the right answer and then match this result with the options given in the question.

We are asked to find the number which is $60\%$ less than 80. For that we are first going to find $60\%$ of 80 by multiplying $\dfrac{60}{100}$ by 80 and this is how multiplication looks like:
$\dfrac{60}{100}\times 80$
Multiplying 60 by 80 in the numerator of the resulting fraction we get,
$\dfrac{4800}{100}$
In the above expression, 100 will be cancelled out in the numerator and denominator and we are left with:
48
Now, we are going to subtract 48 from 80 to get the desired result.
\begin{align} & 80-48 \\ & =32 \\ \end{align}
From the above calculations, we have got the number 32 which is $60\%$ less than 80.
Hence, the correct option is (c).

Note: The various ways in which you misinterpret the language of the question.
First is you might think, the number that the question is asking is $60\%$ of 80.
Second way is you might think that we have to check each option by taking $60\%$ of every option and then see which option gives the answer on percentage application as less than 80.The two interpretations that we have discussed above are the wrong ways of solving the problem so carefully read the question.