Question

What is the percent of change from 500 to 60?

Answer 1

Answer: 88% decrease

Step-by-step explanation: First determine whether the number increases or decreases. Here, since the number changes from 500 to 60, it's getting smaller so it decreases.

To find the percent decrease, we use the following formula:

amount of change/original number

The amount of change is the difference between the two numbers which here is 500 - 60 and the original number is 500.

So we have
`(500 - 60)/(500)`.

Notice that we always subtract the larger number minus the smaller number when finding the amount of change. That's so that our percent increase or percent decrease will always be positive.

500 - 60 is 440 so we have
`(440)/(500)` or 440 divided by 500 which is 0.88.

Finally, remember that we want the percent increase.

So we need to write 0.88 as a percent by moving the decimal point two places to the right to get 88%.

So when a number changes from 500 to 60, there is an 88% decrease.