Finding Percents

Question

At the beginning of the school year, Anderson Middle School had 480 students. At the end of the year, it had 504 students. What is the percent of change in the enrollment?

Answer 1

First determine your base value: the number of students at the beginning of the school year, which is 480. The number of students increases to 504, that is an increase of 24 students. Percent just means per hundred:

If we had 24 student increase for a starting number of students of 480, how much of an increase would we have if we had 100 students to begin with.

24/480 = x/100 (cross multiply)

480 x = 2400

x = 2400 / 480 = 5%

or

(24/480)*100 = 5%

(Note that the result is positive since there is an increase. If there was a decrease, the result would be negative)

Answer 2

The question is:

24 is what percent of 480?

The question translated into a math sentence is:

24=480X

Divide both sides by 480 to solve for X

24/480=X

.05=X

Convert a decimal to percent by moving the decimal two places to the right.

.05 becomes 5%