Official Guide # 216

[shaftbmf]

If m>0 and x is m percent of y, then , in terms of m, y is what percent of x?

a) 100m
B) 1/100m
C) 1/m
D) 10/m
E) 10000/m

What do they mean in terms of m? Solve for m?
What is the approach? VIC?

thank you

[GMATAttack]

If m>0 and x is m percent of y, then , in terms of m, y is what percent of x?

Translation:
If x = m/100 * y

y is what percent of x?

Plug in numbers:
x = 4, m = 50, y = 8

If 4 = 50/100 * 8

8 is what percent of 4?
8 is 200% of 4

Plug in values looking for target answer of 200. Try E - 10,000/m = 10,000/50 = 200. E is correct.

[StaceyKoprince]

Whenever they say "in terms of m" that is NOT what you solve for - instead, this indicates that m will be part of your answer (as you can see if you look at the answers). We solve for something else (in this case y as a percent of x).

The clue is always in your answers - you can see that m is there, so that's not what we're solving for. We're solving for something else, of which m is just part of the answer.

And, yes, a variable in the answers is always a clue that you can try numbers - which I would do on this one, as it is relatively straightforward (see GMATAttack's approach, above). You can pick anything you want - again, just try to make your life easy.