SNAP Profit, Loss and Discount Previous Year Questions

SNAP Profit, Loss and Discount PYQ, free to download as a 38-page PDF. The bank carries 20 solved questions from the 2006 to 2025 papers and takes roughly two days to work through, so split it across margins and false weights.

Every question keeps the year it was asked and the options exactly as printed. An answer key follows the questions, then a full worked solution for all 20.

How the Answer Key Was Prepared

Worth stating plainly, because it is unusual. Symbiosis does not release an official answer key for SNAP, and the question papers we work from carry the questions only.

Every answer in this booklet was therefore worked out by our team from first principles, not copied from an official key. Each numeric answer was independently reproduced using exact fraction arithmetic and checked against the printed option list before publication.

Each solution shows the full reasoning, so you can follow the working rather than take the letter on trust.

What the 20 Questions Cover

Profit and loss sits inside the Quantitative, Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency section and is one of the topics SNAP returns to most often, usually in a form that layers two or three ideas rather than testing a single formula.

• Markup and discount together, where a labelled price is marked up and then discounted, and the two do not cancel
• False weights and faulty balances, including one question that cheats on both the buying and the selling side
• Chained resales, where an article passes through three hands at different gains and losses
• Blends and mixtures sold at a margin, where the cost per unit must be built before any profit is taken
• Data sufficiency, where the question is whether the given statements pin the cost price down at all

The Five Moves That Solve Almost All of Them

Across the 20 questions the same handful of moves keeps working. Naming them makes the section much faster.

• Set the cost price to 100 whenever the question is entirely in percentages; it removes the algebra
• Remember that discount sits on the marked price and profit sits on the cost price, and never mix the two bases
• Chain successive discounts by multiplying what survives, not by adding the discounts
• Apply a false weight to the cost side only; it changes what the seller gives up, never what the buyer pays
• When a profit is quoted in units of selling price, write the equation in s and c and let one cancel

When the Honest Answer Is "None of These"

One question in this set resolves to an option saying none of the printed values is correct, and it is worth studying rather than skipping.

An article is labelled to earn 30% profit and then sold at a 10% discount on that label. Taking cost as 100, the label is 130 and the sale is 117, so the actual profit is exactly 17%.

The options offer 18%, 15% and 20%. The tempting reasoning that 30% minus 10% leaves 20% is precisely the error being tested.

Two Questions Worth Doing First

If time is short, start here. Each teaches a move the rest of the set reuses.

2021, cheating on both sides. A seller takes 300 g extra when buying and gives 300 g short when selling, in 5 kg packets, while claiming to sell at cost. The two cheats do not simply add; converting each into an actual weight against a fixed sum of money is the only reliable route.

2023, two mixing ratios. The same two sugars blended 3 : 2 return 10% profit and blended 2 : 3 return 5%, at one fixed selling price. Turning each profit into the blend's cost gives two linear equations that fix the ratio of the two cost prices.

Watch Profit, Loss and Discount PYQs Solved

Source: MBA Pathshala

How to Use the Answer Key and Solutions

Attempt the whole set before checking anything. The layout is built so an answer cannot be glimpsed by accident.

• Do the whole set in one timed sitting, allowing about ninety seconds each
• Mark the answer key in one pass, right or wrong only
• Read the solution for every miss and every lucky guess
• Each solution opens with a one-line quick solution, so you can stop there and retry

Traps These Questions Are Built Around

A handful of errors account for most lost marks here, and several questions exist only to catch them.

• Subtracting a discount from a markup as though both sat on the same base
• Adding two successive discounts instead of compounding what remains
• Measuring profit against the cost of only the goods actually sold when the question says outlay
• Applying a false weight to the revenue rather than to the cost
• Reading 33.33% as 0.3333 instead of exactly one third, which breaks a whole-number answer

For the rest of the section, the SNAP Averages, Mixtures and Alligation PYQs and the SNAP Permutations, Combinations and Probability PYQs cover the other repeated quant topics in the same format.