Jane paid $40 for an item after she received a 20% discount. Jane's friend says this means that the original price of the item was $48. a. How do you think Jane's friend arrived at this amount?

The discount is $8

Step-by-step explanation:

Step one

Given data

Jane paid $40 for an item after she received a 20% discount.

Required

The initial cost of the item

Now in other to check whether Jane's friend is correct, let us solve for the initiai cost as follows

Let the initial cost be x

so

20% of 40

20/100*40

=0.2*40= $8

Therefore the discount is $8

hence the original price is

discount+ discounted sale(amount paid)

=8+40

=$48

since both sides equal, there are infinitely many olutions.