Kara categorized her spending this month
into four categories,
rent, food, fun and other.
The amounts she spent in each category
are pictured here in our pie chart.
What percent of her total
spending did she spend on fun?
Answer to the nearest whole percent.
So notice how we can
tell from the pie chart
she spent $250 this month on fun,
but in order to find the total spent,
we need to find the sum
of these four amounts.
Let's begin by doing this.
The total spent would
be equal to 333 plus 417
plus 500 plus 250, which equals 1,500.
Now that we know that she spent a total
of $1,500 this month,
to determine what
percent she spent on fun,
we want to answer the question
250 is what percent of 1,500?
Now there are several ways
to solve this problem,
but notice how the
fraction she spent on fun
would be 250 out of 1,500.
So this is the fraction she spent on fun,
so we can now convert this
fraction into a decimal
and then into a percent
to answer this question.
Well notice how this
fraction does simplify.
It's not required to simplify this
to convert to a decimal
and then a percent,
but let's go ahead and
show how to simplify this.
Notice how both of these
have a common factor of 250,
so if we simplify out
the common factor of 250,
we would have 250 divided by 250 is one.
1,500 divided by 250 is equal to six.
So she spent 1/6 of her money on fun,
and now let's convert
this fraction to a decimal
and then a percent.
To convert to a decimal, we divide.
So here we have one divided by six.
So one divided by six
is approximately .167,
but if we want 0.167, then to
convert a decimal to a percent
we multiply by 100 and
move the decimal point
to the right to places
and add a percent sign.
So this would be approximately 16.7%,
but notice how we are asked to round
to the nearest whole percent,
so this would round to 17%.
So she spent approximately
17% of her money
on fun this month.
Now I'll also show how to set this up
using a percent equation
and a percent proportion.
Using a percent equation, the
first thing we see is 250,
so we have 250, the word is means equals,
so 250 equals, next we
have what, or what percent,
this represents the unknown,
so we'll use a variable,
let's use P for percent.
Of means multiplication, so times,
and then we have 1,500.
So to solve for P here, we would
divide both sides by 1,500.
Simplifying, we have P
is going to be equal to this quotient,
which is the same quotient
we had for our fraction
in our first method,
so this would simplify to 1/6,
but also notice that 250 divided by 1,500
still gives us approximately 0.167.
Converting to a percent,
we would have 16.7%,
which is the same result rounding to 17%.
And finally as a percent proportion,
we know we'd have two rates
or ratios equal to each other.
Here we're trying to find the percent,
which is a number compared to 100,
so let's have one ratio be P to 100.
This ratio here would be
the part to the whole,
or the amount of money
spent on fun, which is 250,
to the total spent of 1,500.
And now we cross multiply and solve for P,
1,500 times P must equal 250 times 100,
so 1,500P equals 250 times 100 is 25,000,
dividing by 1,500, simplifying,
we have P is equal to this quotient,
which we'll have to round,
so 25,000 divided by 1,500
gives us approximately 16.7,
which notice now is a
number compared to 100,
so we know this it's going
to be approximately 16.7%,
which rounded to the nearest whole percent
again gives us 17%.
So of course you wouldn't solve
this three different ways,
you want to use the method that
makes the most sense to you,
and probably stick with that one method.
I hope you found this helpful.
