7.1: Percent

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When one hears the word “percent,” other words come immediately to mind, words such as “century,” “cents,” or “centimeters.” A century equals 100 years. There are one hundred cents in a dollar and there are 100 centimeters in a meter. Thus, it should come as no surprise that percent means “parts per hundred.”

In the world we live in we are constantly bombarded with phrases that contain the word “percent.” The sales tax in California is 8.25%. An employee is asking his boss for a 5% raise. A union has seen a 6.25% increase in union dues. The population of a town is increasing at a rate of 2.25% per year.

In this chapter we introduce the concept of percent, first addressing how to facilitate writing percents in fraction or decimal form and also performing the reverse operations, changing fractions and decimals to percents. Next we use our expertise in solving equations to solve the more common forms that involve percents, then we apply this ability to solving common applications from the real world that use percents. We’ll tackle applications of commission and sales tax, discount and marked price, percent increase or decrease, and simple interest.

Let’s begin the journey