Video Transcript
Find the percentage change from 735 dollars to 545 dollars, rounding your answer to the nearest whole percentage.
Is this change an increase or a decrease? In order to calculate a percentage change, we firstly need to work out the actual change or difference between the two values. We divide this by the original value and multiply that answer by 100 to turn it into a percentage.
In this case, to work out the actual change or difference between 735 dollars and 545 dollars, we subtract 545 from 735; this gives us 190 dollars. We can then substitute the numbers into the formula. The actual change, 190 dollars, divided by the original value, 735 dollars, multiplied by 100.
There are lots of ways of working this out on our calculator. We could simplify the fraction first and then multiply it by 100. We could turn the fraction into a decimal and multiply that answer by 100 or we could just type the whole calculation in one go. All of these will give us an answer of 25.85 percent. However, we were asked what is the answer to the nearest percentage? Rounding this to the nearest whole number gives us 26 percent. Therefore, the percentage change from 735 dollars to 545 dollars is 26 percent.
The second part of the question asked us whether it was an increase or a decrease. Now, this is actually the easiest part of the question. We started with 735 dollars; we ended up with 545 dollars. Has the number increased or has it decreased? Well, obviously, we can see that 545 is less than 735. So our answer has decreased. Overall, we can say that the percentage change from 735 dollars to 545 dollars is a 26 percent decrease.
