Question Video: Calculating Percentages That Describe Relations between Numbers in Word Problems

Video Transcript

Of the 325 residents in a neighborhood, 162 volunteered at the local orphanage. Find, to the nearest whole percent, the percent of residents who did not volunteer.

There were 325 residents in total and of these 162 volunteered. This means that to calculate the number of residents that did not volunteer, we need to subtract 162 from 325. This gives us 163.

We can, therefore, say that 163 out of 325 residents did not volunteer. This can be written as a fraction: 163 divided by 325. In order to turn this into a percentage, we need to multiply it by 100. 163 divided by 325 multiplied by 100 is equal to 50.15384615.

We were asked to give the percent to the nearest whole percent. This means we need to round our answer. As the number after the dotted line is less than five, we need to round down. Therefore, our answer is 50.

The percent of residents who did not volunteer at the orphanage to the nearest whole percent is 50 percent. We could check this answer as 163 is slightly more than half of 325 and a half is equal to 50 percent.