so lets say the question is 19 is what percent of 54, i know that its 19/54 X 100 gives you the percentage. But how would you solve the question on paper? All of the questions i have to solve end up having decimals leaving me confused.

This post was edited by TD-DentyneIce on Feb 19 2018 12:01am

what exactly are you trying to ask? how to do this by hand?

yes that is correct, sorry if i wasn't clear

19/54 = x/100

cross multiply

1900 = 54x

divide both sides by 54

35.185 = x

we know a percent is a quantity per 100 parts, so when you solve for x in this fashion, the answer you get for x also happens to be 35.185%. you can get the decimal places by doing long divison. In a science course, you would usually use significant figures to determine how many decimal places you need. In a math course they like exact answers so your best bet for that is to have the remainder as a fraction where possible. 35 times 19 gives you 1890 so your remainder is 10. you can simplify 10/54 to 5/27 and report your answer as 35 and 5/27 percent

This post was edited by Zpot on Feb 19 2018 01:43am