The term percentage or percent is very evident in our everyday life. Whether you are buying groceries or cars, it provides information regarding your total expenditures’ scale or proportion. It also helps evaluate specific things, such as knowing the number of visitors to your site or evaluating a particular survey result. Percentage plays a significant role in assessing things and is an integral part of our everyday life. So how do you find out the percentage?
To help answer your burning question, we have included three different ways of calculating percentages.
Table of Contents
1. The Whole method
As you might know, 100% means the entire amount, and 0% represents nothing. You will have to visualize the whole amount to find the percentage. For example, if you are to find the percentage of P (portion) from W (whole), knowing the entire amount of W (whole) will help you to find out P (portion).
The Whole method works on these principles:
- Percentage – A percentage expresses a number from 0% to 100%, where the whole represents 100%. For instance, you ate three (30%) apples from a total of ten (100%), which means that you have eaten 3/10 x 100%. This equation leaves you with 70% of the original apples left with you.
- Finding the whole value – If you have 1684 balls in a jar containing 1199 white balls and 485 green balls, your whole amount would be 1684 as it equals 100%.
- Calculate the desired value into a percentage – Let’s assume we want to find out the percentage of the 485 green balls from the whole amount. To calculate the percentage, we will have to divide the numerator (485) from the denominator (1684), giving you 1199 or 28.8%.
- Put the values into a fraction – Citing the above example, the numerator (485) goes on top, while the denominator (1684) goes to the bottom. The fraction, in this case, should look like 485/1684.
- From fraction to decimal – One of the best ways of calculating percentages is in the decimal form. For example, turning 485/1684 will give you 0.288.
- From decimal to percentage – To get the percentage from a decimal value, you will have to multiply 0.288 by 100%, which will give you 28.8%.
2. Reverse percentage method
The reverse method allows you to find the percentage by working backward to calculate the original amount. This method involves finding the actual amount after the increase or decrease in the percentage.
The reverse method works on these principles:
- Identifying the numbers needed for the calculation – The reverse method involves identifying and calculating specific numbers. For instance, if you borrowed $15 with an interest rate of 3% per day, you have to calculate the percentage based on these two numbers.
- Convert percentage into a decimal – After you identify and calculate the percentage, it is time to convert it into a decimal. To do this calculation, you can multiply the percentage by 0.01 or divide by 100% (3%/100% = 3/100 = 0.03.
- Multiply the decimal with your burrowed amount – After you get the decimal, multiply it with the initial amount (15 x 0.03 = 0.45). This figure is the interest accrued per day.
3. Calculating Discounts method
Discounts of any amount are a shopper’s delight. While its primary goal is to attract customers, many people don’t realize whether they are saving or wasting money.
This method works on the following principles:
- Determine the original price and the discounted percentage – Customers always get overjoyed by getting discounts, but retailers usually increase the actual cost to offer a discount percentage. It would be best to evaluate the actual price and the discount percentage before getting delighted.
- The opposite discount percentage – You can find the percentage by subtracting the total percentage by the one you are getting. For example, if you are getting a 30% off on a shirt, you pay 70% of the actual price (100% – 30% = 70%).
- Find the decimal value of the opposite percentage – By dividing or multiplying the opposite percentage, you can get your discount’s decimal value. For example, 70%/100% = 0.7.
- Multiply the new decimal by the original price – Suppose the shirt costs $20; you need to multiply the actual value by 0.7 ($20 x 0.7), which means that the discounted price is $14.
