Easy trick to mentally calculate percentages

Situation when we need to calculate the percentages in our mind are

quite common. While calculating the VAT, Insurance premium or Tips at
restaurant, we thought of percentages or perhaps if we are earning
then we would have thought about percentage of our salary we are
paying for rent, food or fuel for our vehicle. These are real life situation
and we are often asked in the competitive examinations.

Basic Percentage Review

So what is the easiest way to calculate percentages? Here are some

tips to quickly find percentages mentally. Think like this:

 There are some percentages that are easy to calculate mentally.

50% means half, 25% means 1/4 and 75% means 3/4 .

 Finding 10% of a number is one of the most useful and also one
of the easiest. To find 10% all we need to do is move/shift the
decimal one place to the left. Thus 10% of 543 = 54.3, pretty
simple!

 1% is just as easy too. Shifting the decimal point to 2 digits left.

So, 1% of 654 = 6.54

 100% is the easiest by far. The number does not change. So,
100% of 765 is the number itself i.e. is 765.

 50% is just the number divided by 2. So, 50% of 444 = 222.

 How 5% works. It’s just half of 10%. Simply 2 steps in any order
(1) Take 10% (2) Divide by 2. You can take 10% first or divide by
2 first, it does not matter. For example, 5% of 44 =? 10% of 44 is
4.4 and divide by 2 gives us 2.2. So, 5% of 44 =4.4. Again, 5% of
$24.80=? a) $24.80 -->> $2.48 (moving the decimal point one
place to the left) and b) $2.48 / 2 = $1.24.

 15% is just 10%+5% and we already know how to solve these.

So, 15% of 24 =? 10% of 24 is, well, take the decimal to one digit
left to get 2.4 and 5% is just half of 10%. So we divide 2.4 by 2 to
get 1.2. So, add them up 2.4+1.2= 3.6 which is 15% of 24.

 20% of 120=? 20% is nothing but 10%+10% (breaking up into

friendly parts). So, 10% of 120 is 12 (shifting the decimal one
 place to the left) and double of that would be 24. Again, 20% of
132=? 10% would be 13.2 and 20% would be double of that that
is 26.4

 60% of 320=? 60%=50%+10%, so 50% of 320 would be 160 and

10% would be 32. So, our final answer would be 160+32 which is
192.

 75% is doing the same thing-breaking it up into friendly

parts/numbers. 75% of 880=? You can break it up by 50%+25%.
50% of 880 gives us 440. Now we need to find 25% of 880. Now,
25% is just half of 50% and we already solved 50%, so just take
half of that. 440 divided by 2 gives us 220. Now as we broke it
up, we have to put it back together. So our final answer is
440+220 =660.

 95% of 2400 =? Break it up into friendly parts/numbers. So break

it 2 parts- 100% and 5%. The 100% of 2400 does not change. So,
100% of 2400=2400 and 5% of 2400=? To find 5%, take 10%
and then divide by 2. 10% of 2400 is 240 and half of 240 is 120,
so 5% of 2400 is 120. Now as we broke it up, we have to put it
back together. So, 100% - 5% =2400-120=2280.

 110% of 140=? 110%=100%+10%, 100% is the number itself

which is 140 and 10% of 140 is 14 so 140+14=154.

We can use same breaking up techniques to solve ANY percentage

problem.

 31% of 222=? Breaking up 31% by 10%+10%+10%+1%. Now,

10% of 222 just gives us 22.2. Because we have 3 sets of 10%,
we need to multiply 22.2 by 3 to get 66.6 (10%+10%+10% is the
same as 3x10%). Lastly we need to find 1% of 222 which gives
us 2.22. So, our final answer is 66.6 +2.22 =68.82

 21% of 150=? 21%=10%+10%+1%. Now 10% of 150 would be

15. So, 20% would be double of 15 that is 30 and1% of 150
would be 1.5. So final answer would be 30+1.5 which is 31.5

 17% of 300=? Break 17% into 10% + 5% + 2%. Now calculate;

10% of 300 is 30, 5% of 300 is half of 10% (i.e. 30/2= 15) and 2%
(2x1% of 300 = 2x3 = 6). So it all add up to 51.

 Let’s try 97% of 195. 97% is probably broken down easiest into
100%-3%. 1% of 195 =1.95. Now multiply it by 3 to get 5.85. So
our final answer is 195-5.85=189.15

 98% of 250=? 98% is 100%-2%. 100% of 250 is 250 and 1%

would be 2.5 (decimal will shift 2 places towards the left). 2%
would be 5. So our final answer would be 250-5 i.e. 245.

 167% of 195=? One way to break it up is 100%+50%+25%+1%.

We know 100% of 195 is 195. 50% is just half of 195 which is
97.5. 25% of 195 is just half of 97.5 which is 44.25. 1% of 195 is
 1.95. And finally we just add them all up to get, 195 + 97.5 +
44.25 + 1.95 = 342.2

 There are many different ways to look at a problem. Say, 42% of

366=? 2 different ways to solve the same problem. We can do
this by taking (a) 4x10% + 2x1% or (b) we can also do it a
different way by taking 50% and subtracting 8% i.e. 50% - 1%x8.
Both are same, both give us the same answer. a) 4x10% +
2x1%. 10% is 36.6 and 1% is 3.66. Now, 4x36.6=146.4 and
2x3.66=7.32; adding them up is 153.72. b) 50% - 1%x8. 50% is
half of 366 which is 183 and 8% is 3.66x8 = 29.28; subtracting
the two gives us 183-29.28=153.72, the same answer as before.

 62% of 420 would be 50%+10%+2% which is 210 + 42 + 8.4 =

260.4

 22% of 324 would be 10%+10%+2% i.e. 32.4×2 +3.24×2 =

64.8 + 6.48 = 71.28

 16% of 42 would be 10%+5%+1% i.e. 4.2 + 2.1 + 0.42 = 6.72.

a% of b = b% of a

 It may not be immediately clear, but it’s true: a% of b = .01 × a

× b, which is the same as b% of a (.01 × b × a).
 What’s 16% of 25? The same as 25% of 16: 4
 What’s 43% of 200? Same as 200% of 43: 86.
How to Solve Percent Problems
By Mark Zegarelli from Basic Math and Pre-Algebra For
Dummies
A lot of percent problems turn out to be easy to solve when you give
them a little thought. In many cases, just remember the connection
between percents and fractions and you’re halfway home:

Solve simple percent problems

Some percents are easy to figure. Here are a few.
 Finding 100% of a number: Remember that 100% means the
whole thing, so 100% of any number is simply the number itself:
100% of 5 is 5
100% of 91 is 91
100% of 732 is 732
 Finding 50% of a number: Remember that 50% means half, so
to find 50% of a number, just divide it by 2:
50% of 20 is 10
50% of 88 is 44

 Finding 25% of a number: Remember that 25% equals 1/4, so

to find 25% of a number, divide it by 4:
25% of 40 is 10
25% of 88 is 22

 Finding 20% of a number: Finding 20% of a number is handy if

you like the service you’ve received in a restaurant, because a
good tip is 20% of the check. Because 20% equals 1/5, you can find
20% of a number by dividing it by 5. But you can use an easier way:
To find 20% of a number, move the decimal point one place to the
left and double the result:
20% of 80 = 8 2 = 16
20% of 300 = 30 2 = 60
20% of 41 = 4.1 2 = 8.2
 Finding 10% of a number: Finding 10% of any number is the
same as finding 1/10 of that number. To do this, just move the
decimal point one place to the left:
10% of 30 is 3
 10% of 41 is 4.1
10% of 7 is 0.7
 Finding 200%, 300%, and so on of a number: Working with
percents that are multiples of 100 is easy. Just drop the two 0s and
multiply by the number that’s left:
200% of 7 = 2 7 = 14
300% of 10 = 3 10 = 30
1,000% of 45 = 10 45 = 450

Make tough-looking percent problems easy

Here’s a trick that makes certain tough-looking percent problems so
easy that you can do them in your head. Simply move the percent sign
from one number to the other and flip the order of the numbers.
Suppose someone wants you to figure out the following:
88% of 50
Finding 88% of anything isn’t an activity that anybody looks forward to.
But an easy way of solving the problem is to switch it around:
88% of 50 = 50% of 88
This move is perfectly valid, and it makes the problem a lot easier. As
you learned above, 50% of 88 is simply half of 88:
88% of 50 = 50% of 88 = 44
As another example, suppose you want to find
7% of 200
Again, finding 7% is tricky, but finding 200% is simple, so switch the
problem around:
7% of 200 = 200% of 7
Above, you learned that to find 200% of any number, you just multiply
that number by 2:
7% of 200 = 200% of 7 = 2 7 = 14

Solve more-difficult percent problems

You can solve a lot of percent problems using the tricks shown above.
But what about this problem?
35% of 80 = ?
Ouch — this time, the numbers you’re working with aren’t so friendly.
When the numbers in a percent problem become a little more difficult,
the tricks no longer work, so you want to know how to solve all percent
problems.
Here’s how to find any percent of any number:
1. Change the word of to a multiplication sign and the
percent to a decimal.
 Changing the word of to a multiplication sign is a simple example of
turning words into numbers. This change turns something
unfamiliar into a form that you know how to work with.
So, to find 35% of 80, you would rewrite it as:
35% of 80 = 0.35 80
2. Solve the problem using decimal multiplication.
Here’s what the example looks like:

So 35% of 80 is 28.
As another example, suppose you want to find 12% of 31. Again, start
by changing the percent to a decimal and the word of to a
multiplication sign:
12% of 31 = 0.12 31
Now you can solve the problem with decimal multiplication:

So 12% of 31 is 3.72.