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Math: Basic Tutorials : Solving Percent Application Problems
Solving Percent Application Problems
Once you know the basics of how to solve operations with percent, you can use those methods to solve application problems. This section explains how to find the base, part, and percent in a word problem, and use them to solve the problem.
Example and Activity
What is the sale price of a coat that is normally 95 dollars and is discounted by 20 percent.
Line 1: What are you being asked to find. We are being asked to find the sale price.
Line 2: Choose a variable to represent it. Let s be the sale price.
Line 3: Write a sentence that gives the information to write an equation to find s. If the discount is 20 percent, this means the sale price is 80 percent of the original price.
Line 4: Translate the words into algebra, so the equation is s equals 0 decimal 8 0 times 95.
Line 5: Multiply to solve for s, so s equals 76.
Line 6: Write a statement that answers the question. The sale price of the coat is 76 dollars.
A cupcake contains 480 calories, and 240 of those calories are from fat. What percent of the total calories come from fat?
Line 1: What are you being asked to find? We are being asked to find the percent of the calories that from fat.
Line 2: Choose a variable to represent it. Let p be the percent from fat.
Line 3: Write a sentence that gives the information to find p. What percent of 480 is 240?
Line 4: Translate the words into algebra, so the equation is p time 480 equals 240.
Line 5: Divide both sides of the equation by 480 to solve for p, so the equation is 480p divided by 480 equals 240 divided by 480.
Line 6: Simplify to get p equals 0 decimal 5.
Line 5: Convert the decimal to a percent by multiplying by 100 percent so p = 50 percent.
Line 7: Write a statement that answers the question. Therefore, 50 percent of the calories in the cupcake are from fat.
Source: "Prealgebra - opens in a new window" by Lynn Marecek & Mary Anne Anthony-Smith is licensed under CC BY 4.0 - opens in a new window / A derivative from the original work - opens in a new window
Try this activity to test your skills. If you have trouble, check out the information in the module for help.
Summary and Worksheet
- Summary: Solving Percent Application Problems - PDF - Opens in a new windowThis document contains a short (1 – 2 page) summary of this topic as well as detailed examples to illustrate key concepts. Use this summary to review this topic.
- Worksheet: Solving Percent Application Problems - PDF - Opens in a new windowThis document contains practice questions on this topic. Use the worksheet to test your knowledge and practice the skills learned in this module. The answers to the practice questions are provided at the end.