Jules buys a washing machine - Edexcel - GCSE Maths - Question 9 - 2017 - Paper 1

To find the price of the washing machine without VAT, we first note that the total amount of £600 includes 20% VAT. This means that £600 represents 120% of the original price. We can express this mathematically as:

$ext{Total Price} = ext{Price without VAT} + ext{VAT}$

So,

$ext{Total Price} = ext{Price} + 0.2 imes ext{Price} = 1.2 imes ext{Price}$

Thus, if we let the price of the washing machine be represented as $P$, we can set up the equation:

$1.2 P = 600$