Big Bun wrestled in 25 matches and won 18. This is represented by the fraction 18⁄25. 25 is the total number of matches he wrestled in, or the whole. 18 is the number of matches he won, or the part. We’re trying to find the percent that’s equivalent to this fraction. A percent is a part-to-whole ratio where the whole is 100. So, we can set up an equivalent fraction with a denominator of 100.
In this problem, it’s easy to use this method because 25 is a factor of 100. We can multiply 25 by 4 to get 100, and we can do the same thing to the numerator to find the percent. But if the denominator is not a factor of 100, you can first convert your fraction to a decimal. Then, you can use the decimal to find the percent. If Big Bun had won 18 out of 24 matches, we could first convert the fraction 18⁄24 to a decimal by dividing the numerator, the top number, by the denominator, the bottom number. 18 ÷ 24 = .75, or 75 hundredths. We could then multiply this decimal by 100 to find the part of out of 100, 75%.
If Big Bun won 5 out of 25 matches, what percent did he win?
A
25%
B
20%
C
15%
D
10%
To find the percent that Big Bun won, we need to set up an equivalent fraction with a denominator of 100. Since 25 is a factor of 100, we can multiply both the numerator and denominator by 4.
5/25 x 4/4 = 20/100
This means that Big Bun won 20% of the matches.
Therefore, the correct answer is B) 20%.