Percentage of Problem [Tricky wording]

Base 10? I'm kinda confused, this is the exact wording as it was on my test but I don't know the answer.
 
What is 10% greater than 40?
What is 30% greater than 40?
What is 15% greater than 40?
I will show you how to do the last one I listed.
15% of 40 is 6. So 15% greater than 40 would be 40+6 or 46.
Can you now try to solve your problem?
 
What is 10% greater than 40?
What is 30% greater than 40?
What is 15% greater than 40?
I will show you how to do the last one I listed.
15% of 40 is 6. So 15% greater than 40 would be 40+6 or 46.
Can you now try to solve your problem?
Ohh. So is it 25? Since 25% of 40 is 10, added to equal 50?
 
Base 10? I'm kinda confused, this is the exact wording as it was on my test but I don't know the answer.
When Subhotosh Kahn asked "What is the base?" he did not mean base of the numeration system. He was referring to the base of the percentage. Any time you talk about a percentage you have to think "percent of WHAT?" This problem asks you to find a number, p, such that "50 is p percent greater than 40". When Subhotosh Kahn asked "What is the base?" he wanted you to think "p percent of what?"

Here that must be 40 since the only other number, 50, is the result of increasing 40 by p percent.

To go from 40 to 50 we have to increase by 10. 10 is what percent of 40? Can you answer that?
 
50 is p% greater than 40. p = ?


I think "p% greater than" should be avoided. p% is a rate to be multiplied by a number.
"Greater than" deals with addition. To be clear with grammar and the arithmetic, I feel
the problem should be closer to:

"50 is p% of 40 added to 40. p = ?"

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Or, look at the related problem:

"50 is p% of 40. p = ?"

Then you know you are looking for greater than 100%.
 
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