Rapheal paid $486 for a camera on a 25% off sale what was the original price?

You can set up an equation to solve.

Let x be original price.
25% of x = amount you saved.

Now the original amount - amount you saved = $486.

So x - 0.25x = 486
0.75x = 486
x = 648
Original price was $648

So the first thing we do is to multiply the top equation by 3. the reason i want to do this is i notice there will be a 6y on both equations and can possibly add/subtract them. so we get 6y = -3x + 27. adding that and the second equation we get 6x = 27-15 which is 12. divide by 6 and we get 2. ∴ x = 2. substituting 2 into the first equation we get 2y = -2 + 9 which is 7. divide by 2 and we get 7/2. ∴ y = 7/2, x = 2.