Math: Percentages

You’re walking in the mall and you’re trying to find a thick hoodie because you have a trip to the arctic next week. Some of the shops you’ve passed did sell hoodies, but they didn’t have what you wanted and the price didn’t match the quality either. You look to your right and spot a hoodie you like. It costs $25, but you only have $20. You’re about​ leave, but you see a sign that says “Special Offer: All is 25% Off!”. Now, you actually might be able to afford the jacket and avoid 3 more hours of walking and searching for another hoodie in another store in this gigantic mall. But how much is 25% off? How much is the hoodie now? And how much will you have left?

So the price of the hoodie without the discount is 25$. The discount is 25% off, so we need to find 25% of 25$. Then will you be able to figure out how much is left and how much the hoodie costs with the discount. 100% of the hoodie’s price is 25$, so 100/100 = 25$. 25% of 25$ isn’t known yet, but we know that 25% = 25/100 just like the 100%. To find 25% of 25$, just basically take 25$ times 25/100. We also know that 25/100 = 25 ÷ 100. This can be done using many different methods. Here is the one I’m using:

25 (the price) x 25 (the discount %) = 625 ÷ 100 = 6.25$ (25% of 25$)

Now we know that 25% of 25$ is 6.25$. All we need to do now is find the new price and then will we know if we can buy the hoodie or not. 6.25$ is just the discount. The new price is the difference of the normal price subtracted by the discount. So it’s done like:

25$ - 6.25% = 18.75$

The price of the hoodie now is 18.75$. You have 20$. You have just enough! Well lucky you. How much will you have left after buying the hoodie? I’ll leave that one for you to figure out. Just simple subtraction.

And that about sums up what we did in round 4 of math. We learned about percentages and to write a portfolio about it, I chose to create this short problem! I learned a lot about percentages as well as enjoyed it. It’s really fun to learn about, doing problems like these and it’ll make figuring out discounts (and solve other real life problems) much easier. The next time you visit a place that sells something you like and has a discount, you know how to figure it out! Thanks for reading!

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