Answer: 40% of the plants are carrots
Explanation:
In order to figure out the percentage, we have to find what "part" of the "total" are the carrots, which is given. We already know that 6 of the total 15 plants are carrots. When referring to a percentage, basically we are trying to find out how many carrots there would be, if we were to have 100 plants. So, in order to do so, we would need 100 plants. I'll make it even more simple:
We have 15 plants - 6 of which are carrots
If we were to have
100 plants - HOW MANY would be carrots??
The answer to our question is also the percentage we are looking for. If we replace HOW MANY with x, than we would have this equation: 15*x=6*100, so 15x=600 and x=40, so the percentage is 40%.
In order to make this easier, as i said in the beginning we are referring to the part of a total, with given numbers, so if we would divide 6 out of 15, we would have 6/15=0.4 , multiplying that number with 100 (for the percentage), you get 40% again, with a faster and easier way. Practice makes perfect.