Identifying Percent Amount and Base

u5_l2_t1_we1 Identifying Percent Amount and Base

We are asked to identify the percent amount and base in this problem.

They ask us 150 is 25% of what number?

So another way to think about it is 25% times some number, so I will do 25% in yellow.

And 25% times some number is equal to 150.

So the percent is pretty easy to spot. We have a 25% right over here.

So, this is going to be the percent. That is the percent.

And we are multiplying the percent times some base number. So this right over here is the base

and we have percent times the base is equal to some amount.

And you can try to solve this in your head.

This is essentially saying 25% times some number is equal to 150.

If it helps, we can rewrite this as 0.25 (which is the same thing as 25%)

0.25 times some number is equal to 150.

And one interesting thing to think about is "should this number be larger or smaller than 150"?

Well, if we only take 25% of that number, if we only take 25/100 of that number

If we only take 1/4th of that number, because that's what 25% is, we get 150. So this number needs to be larger than 150.

If fact, it has to be larger than 150 by 4.

And to actually figure out what this number is

we can actually multiply, since what is on the left hand side is equal to what is on the right

hand side. If we want to solve this, we can multiply both sides by 4.

If we say, look, we have some value over here and we're going to multiply

it by 4 in order for it to still be equal we would have to multiply 150

times 4.

4 times 0.25 (or 4 times 25% or times 1/4th), this is just going to be 1.

And we are going to get our number is equal to 150 times 4.

Or equal to 600.

And that makes sense. 25% of 600 is 150.

1/4th of 600 is 150.