To calculate a percentage, which formula should be used?

To calculate a percentage, the appropriate formula is derived from the relationship between a part and a whole. The percentage represents a portion of the whole, and this is expressed by the ratio of the part to the whole, multiplied by 100 to convert it to a percentage format.

The correct formula, therefore, is the ratio of the part (the value you want to determine the percentage of) to the whole (the total value or the overall quantity) multiplied by 100. This gives you the value of the part as a percentage of the whole.

Using this formula allows you to understand how large the part is in relation to the total. For example, if you have 20 apples out of 100 total apples, you would calculate the percentage of apples by dividing 20 by 100, which gives 0.2, and then multiply by 100 to get 20%. This clearly demonstrates how much of the whole is accounted for by the part.

The other options do not correctly represent how to calculate a percentage: dividing the whole by the part does not yield a meaningful percentage, adding part and whole gives a sum rather than a percentage, and subtracting part from whole simply gives the remaining value, not the relationship needed to express a