Explain the difference between finding the following two solutions: What is 15% of 50? 50 is 15% of what?

Explain the difference between finding the following two solutions:

What is 15% of 50?
50 is 15% of what?

This is a very good example which also could be used to illustrate the very fundamental concept of using and understanding percentage values.  In the first equation, we are saying as to what is only 15% of 50.  So this means that we only want to find a quantity which is equal to only 15% of the total amount of 50.  So 15%*50 would then give us the answer of 7.5.  When we are looking at the second equation, now there is a different concept that is being put here.  This is showing that what is 50 equal to in terms of it being 15% of something.  So in other words, we need to see that a number of 50 is equal to 15% of what other bigger number.  So this larger number here is 333 since what we come to see is that 50 is 15% of 333. So this is a great method to get a good insight into how percentages are denoted.

Answer 2

15*50=7.5 ANS.

50=.15X

 

X=50/.15

X=333.33 ANS.

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