The first thing to remember: «thirty one percent of five hundreds fifty» it's written as «31% of 550». The symbol «%» is often used to make the mathematical expression shorter.
When they talk about 31% of something, they mean that we need to take 31 fragments of the something Whole. One percent means part per one hundred all the time. And we must remember the rule: «The sum of all parts of the whole is 100%». In fact, you have to divide 550 into 100 fragments and take 31 of them. Let's try to figure it out together. You can find out how much 31% of 550 in several ways.
This site below shows some of these methods and an illustration that will help visualize 31% of 550. By the way, people who learn how to calculate 31% of 550 will be able to do the same with other numbers later. Explore that we have presented for you and get a complete understanding of the topic of interest.
As a bonus to the lesson at the end you will know what is not equal to 31% and learn how to solve this problem too.
Memorizing the formula for calculating percents is the easiest way to solve the problem "What is 31% of 550?”. That's why this method is taught in mathematics lessons of schools, because you do not need to know anything about fractional numbers or proportions. Learning the formula will be enough for calculating. The main thing is to correctly determine its components.
The general formula for calculating percentages looks like that:
There are 550 is the Whole, and 31 is the Percent, but the X is the desired result.
So, you can to get an answer to the question «What is thirty one percent of five hundreds fifty»:
Now you know that 31% of 550 it is equal to one hundred seventy!
If you know how to deal with decimal numbers, then you can use another method. You may to convert the percent as a decimal number. It is easy. You can do this by dividing 31 by 100. Just move the decimal point 2 places to the left. So, 31% in decimal form is equal to 0.31
And next just multiply the resulting decimal number with a Whole (with 550):
You get 170.5 again! So, we can use equivalent forms of percentages interchangeably and choose the one(s) that best suit our purpose.
It is a good method which can show you what is 31 percent of 550. Recall that 550 is a Whole, and a Whole is 100 Parts.
Let's make an equation from this proportion to calculate the Part. We need to multiply the numbers cross by cross:
Let's solve this equation and find the unknown:
So, 31% of 550 it is 170.5 again.
Look at the diagram we have drawn for you. It shows 31% of the Whole. The pie chart has 550 fragments, and the blue fragment of the circle is 170.5, or 31% of 550.
Interestingly, the diagram of 31% from any integer will look the same. Because it is always 31 parts of 100 something. Although the answer to the problem will be different, the picture will be the same. For example, 31% of 100 would be 31, which is 31 parts of 100 parts. And the blue part will always take up 31 percent of the circle, because it's always 31 parts of 100.
Since you know the sum is 100%, so to calculate «What is not equal to 31%» you can subtract 31% from 100%. The next step is to take that percents from 550 (we used the formula again):
Or just subtract 170.5 from 550:
The lesson is over. We hope that we have shown everything clearly enough for you to become a real expert.