Percentages
PercentagesTry teaching an A2 student percentages and they might just say: “Look, I have a calculator – percentages are not important!”
But … they are and it is important to actually understand them!
Take for instance, house prices.
In Corby there's more room to breathe for your money and in fact houses are free!
‘Free?’ you may ask.
Well, yes – in fact they will even pay you to have a house.
How can this be so?
The website explains why
It’s all to do with house prices being so low – in fact they’re minus … aren’t they?
Average prices are 154% lower than London
That means that if a house costs £300,000 in London, in Corby they pay you £150,000 to have a house.
That’s fantastic!
The workings
House in London: £300,000
154% of £300,000 is £462,000
£300,000 - £462,000 = - £162,000
Thus if you have a house in London worth £300,000 then if you move to Corby they’ll give you a house AND pay you £162,000!
Surely something is wrong here?
Yes, there is. The web designers don’t know how to calculate percentages.
If something costs £100,000 and the price rises to £120,000 then that is a rise of 20%
If then the price falls from £120,000 to £100,000 that is NOT a fall of 20% but a fall of 17%
£100,000 - £120,000 x 100 = 16.6%
£120,000
Thus:
New – Old x 100 = how you work out percentages!
Old
Someone should tell people in Corby that!
Percentages are useful in Business Studies for:
- Elasticity
- Calculating wage increases
- Price changes
- Your grade!
In case you’re wondering, the houses are in Corby are not free to me. I live in Oxford and – the site says – the prices are:
Corby: £120,601
Oxford:£228,762
I suppose to the web designers that’s …
£120,601 - £228,762 x 100
£120,601
about 90% lower then …
Chris Sivewright
posted by Duncan Williamson @ 11:41 AM
10 Comments:
this is very interesting, percentages are very important
shows some people dont know how to do their job
this is very interesting, this has shown me percentages are more important than i first though
this is very interesting and it uses a very good example to show that percentages are important and useful!
this is very interesting and it uses a very good example to show that percentages are important and useful!
that really has helped to understand percentages with a helpful example.
this is very interesting and it uses a very good example to show that percentages are important and useful!
i really understand the percentages example and it is really clear.
percentages make more sense to me now, and I an see how useful they need to be for business studies - those people were really stupid on the website though!
Yeah I agree with everyone else, very helpful example Chris, Thanks!
Actully I think I really understand these interseting things.
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