Question

25% of what number is 9

Answer 1

Keep in mind the the word "percent" translates to "for each 100." 25% can be read as "25 for each 100," which has the fractional representation $\frac{25}{100}$ and the decimal representation 0.25. All of these representations are just different ways of writing the same value.

Note too that the fraction $\frac{25}{100}$ can be reduced to $\frac{1}{4}$, so what the question is really asking is: 1/4 of what number is 9?

Well, if we know that 1/4 of the number is 9, we can easily find how large the whole number is by finding all 4/4 of it (the whole number), or 4 x 9, which multiplies out to 36.