The local art supply store sold 20 boxes of crayons last year. This year they sold 80 boxes. This year's sales are what percent of last year's sales?

Question

The local art supply store sold 20 boxes of crayons last year. This year they sold 80 boxes. This year's sales are what percent of last year's sales? Draw a diagram to help solve the problem.

Answer 1

Hi Wanda,

 

you can set up a proportion  as follows

 

let x = the percent you want to find

 

and then

 

x/100 = 80/20   (that is the ratio of x to 100% is the same as the ratio of 80 to 20

 

20x = 8000

 

x = 400   (so 80 is 400% of 20 and that makes sense since it is 4 times 20

 

You could have also created a bar graph that showed 20 in year one and 4 groups of 20 in year two stacked on top of each other.  This would show that year two is 4 times year one.

 

Hope this helps