Percents Examples

Write 42% as a ratio.

A percent always has a denominator of 100. That's just how they roll. To write this percent as a ratio, toss 42 in the numerator and 100 in the denominator and simplify if possible.

Good work, but we can still reduce this bad boy. Divide the top and bottom by 2.

What percent of the circle is colored in?

The circle has a total of 10 pieces, and 3 of them are colored in. We can write this as a fraction:

A percent needs to have a denominator of 100, so we can multiply both the numerator and denominator by 10 to get the equivalent fraction:

Now that we have a denominator of 100, we can write this as a percent: 30%, to be precise.

We have a bag of 28 oranges and give 25% to our neighbor, who has a cold. How many do we give away?

We know that 25% means . We can simplify this fraction by dividing the top and bottom by 25. Yeah, let's do that.

We're giving away of our oranges. Knowing 25% is the same as one-fourth is a good thing to remember.

We have 28 oranges and since 28 ÷ 4 = 7, we're giving 7 oranges to our sick neighbor. We're so nice.

If we plant 10% of our flowers in the front yard, 10% in the backyard, and 10% by the mailbox, what percent of our flowers have we planted?

Adding percents is just like adding any other number. Because percents are all fractions with a denominator of 100, they already have like denominators. We can just add the numerators.

10% + 10% + 10% = 30%

We've planted 30% of our flowers.