Problem 7 · 2002 AMC 8
Medium
Fractions, Decimals & Percents
percent-multiplier
The students in Mrs. Sawyer's class each chose one of five kinds of candy in a taste test. The bar graph shows their preferences. What percent of her class chose candy E?
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Answer: E — 20%.
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Hint 1 of 2
A percent needs a *whole* — and the bars don't tell you the class size, so build it first by adding every bar.
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Hint 2 of 2
The total comes out to a friendly 25. Since 25 × 4 = 100, each single student is worth 4% — a tiny conversion you can do in your head.
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Approach: part over whole, then turn into a percent
- Percent always means "out of 100," so you need the whole class first: 6 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 5 = 25 students.
- Candy E got 5 of them. With 25 in the class, each student is 100 ÷ 25 = 4%, so 5 students = 5 × 4% = 20%. (Same as 5/25 = 1/5.)
- *Handy to remember:* when the total is a divisor of 100 (25, 20, 50, …), find the worth of *one* item once, then just multiply — beats fiddling with fractions for every part.
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