A percent is a special way of writing a fraction. The word “percent” comes from the Latin per centum, meaning “per hundred.” (This is also related to why the French word for “hundred” is “cent,” and why there are 100 cents in a dollar.) Well, how can we forgot decimals? We thought that percents, decimals, and fractions were brother and/or sisters. We tried to research in history but we could not even figure out their gender, hence, we decided to define their relationship in the following power triangle. They share a very delicate bonding and it's our moral responsibility to understand it so that we don't upset them.
In this article we will focus on percents. When we write a percent, we are really writing a fraction with a hidden denominator of 100. For example:
In general, a percent is just a fraction with a hidden denominator of 100. Percents are highly used in our real life. Some of such examples are discounts, commissions, sales, bonuses, taxes, profits, interests and lot more. We can't really escape percents so let's learn this concept properly so that you can use it quickly when you need it.
In real life we do not get problems as math equations. We tend to get problem in words, hence, we need a good way to translate words into math. As an example, the word “of” in a word problem usually means multiplication and the word “is” means equal. Don’t memorize “of means multiplication.” Instead, think about what the words actually mean. Use your knowledge and experience to decide how to translate the words into math. Let's review few example below to understand how to convert sentences into simple equations.
If you would like to try more questions like this, you can join Canadian Innovation Math Contest which is available to you for free. You may also win many amazing award.
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