Figuring Percentages

Percentages have always been a very important topic in the mathematics subject taught in schools. From primary grade to secondary classes, you have to solve some problems of percentages. These problems may differ in difficulty level. The reason of the importance of this topic in schools is that many people yet have to encounter the problem in figuring percentages, in their practical lives. Whether you a book seller, shopkeeper, financial analyst, accountant, teacher, engineer, lab worker or any other professional you would be figuring percentages at some point in your work. Or may be at paying tax, percentages come to examine your math skills.

Lets see how percentages are interpreted. Percentage means out of 100. Here are some examples for you:

2% = 2/100 = 0.02

67% = 67/100 =6.7

An explanation through some practical examples is given below:

50% of the population is black. Here 50%=50/100. This means out of 100 people, fifty are black. While rest of the people 100 – 50 = 50 are not black. If you simplify the fraction 50/100, this gives ½. It implies half of the population is black.

The shoes are available with a discount of 20%. Here, it means there is a relief of 20/100 means 1/5^th of the total price of shoes. The 1/5^th price would be subtracted from the original price to obtain the actual selling and discounted price offered.

A 17% tax means 17/100^th part of the total is an additional payment for tax.

A student gets 90% marks in English. This means he got 90/100 marks.

Hence examples from daily life conclude how important it is to know the figuring of percentages.

Now lets find out how the percentages are obtained from a data.

If a student scores 24 marks out of 25, what would be the percentage obtained? To find the percentage you have to multiply it by 100.

( 24/25 ) x 100 = 96%

Amazing isn't it? A deduction of one mark in test score caused the loss of four percent.

Twenty out of forty people died of the virus. You are able to calculate the percentage of died and survived people. (20/40) x 100 = 50%, this means 50% people died and rest 50% survived.

Percentages may sound confusing to some people but once you know the basic rule of 100, it is no more a problem. To extract data from percentage, divide by 100 and to obtain the actual percentage, multiply 100 with the present data. It's simple.