Math 7: Unit 8- Problems Involving Percents

PLEASE NOTE:
Percents are not difficult, but people do struggle with them. One of the main reasons for the struggle is there are so many different ways of thinking about each percent problem. If there are lots of ways to think about percent problems, then there are lots of different ways to teach about percent problems.

The explanations in this unit rely on equations to solve percent problems. They also emphasize that we are always making comparisons to 100%. Tax, tip, markup, discount, and other types of percent problems are computed by always recognizing that we are either going up or down from 100%. The idea of always using 100% as our starting point can make topics in higher math easier to understand.

In short, these lessons show one way to think about percent problems, but it is not the only way. Each way of method of approaching percent problems has its advantages and disadvantages.