# What is Percent

So, what is percent?

For "percent" we use a symbol "%".

"Percent" means "per hundred".

In other words ${1}\%$ can be written as fraction $\frac{{1}}{{100}}$ or decimal ${0.01}$.

So, if you have a cake and you divide it into 100 pieces. Then 1% of the cake is 1 piece.

Now, what is ${20}\%$? Similarly, you divide a cake into 100 pieces and take 20 pieces. In fraction notation it can be written as $\frac{{20}}{{100}}=\frac{{1}}{{5}}$. In decimal notation it is ${0.2}$.

So, ${20}\%=\frac{{1}}{{5}}={0.2}$.

Now, we can see how percent and fraction are related.

Percents and fractions are related in following way: ${p}\%=\frac{{p}}{{100}}$.

Now, let's get back to the whole cake. If cake is divided into 100 pieces and you take all 100 pieces then you take ${100}\%=\frac{{100}}{{100}}={1}$, i.e. whole cake.

We often take some things (cake or pocket money) to be ${100}\%$ (or 1). After this we easily can calculate percent.

Now, what if we have 2 cakes and a half (in other words ${2.5}$ cakes)?

First cake contains 100 pieces, second cake contains 100 pieces and half of cake contains 50 pieces. Total of 250 pieces.

So, it is 250 out of 100 pieces or ${250}\%=\frac{{250}}{{100}}={2.5}$.

Sometimes you can hear: "I want you to give 150% out there". If you did your best, that would be your whole effort. So, that would be 100% of you effort. 150% is just impossible. People say so to make you work even harder that you ever have before.