Ok... I'm going to give this to you the way it was given to me, and if you get this down, you can always figure out the percent, whole, and part so long as you have at least two of those numbers.
You see the image I posted on my answer? You can click on it to make it bigger, so you can see it better (and save it if you want).
That is the 'percent pyramid' and is everything you need to know. All operations are done from the top (if you have that number) to the left (if you have it) then to the right (I think you get the idea).
So as you can see, if you have the part, and the percent (it's always best to display it as a decimal by shifting the assumed decimal two places to the left, so 35% becomes .35), you would divide the part (starting at the top) by the percent. If you had the whole and the percent, you would multiply the whole by the percent (working from the left to the right), and if you had the part and the whole, you would divide the part by the whole (top to bottom), which would give you a decimal that you would then convert back to a percent by moving the decimal two places to the right. (so .15 becomes 15%)
Thus: If you know that 12 is some part of 48, you would divide the 12 by the 48:
12 / 48 = .25 = 25%
If you know that you need to know what 5% of 300 is, you would multiply the whole by the percent (still expressed as a decimal):
300 x .05 = 15 ...and thus know that 15 is 5% of 300.
And lastly, if you know that 12 is 15% of some number, you would divide 12 by the percent (still expressed as a decimal):
12 / .15 = 80, thus 12 is 15% of 80.
There you have it. If you remember this pyramid, you can solve for any number in a percentage problem so long as you know the other two numbers.
Hope this helps, and you have a great day!
