Question

A local hardware store sold 12% of its hammers on Saturday. If the hardware store began with 350 hammers on Saturday, how many hammers were left at the end of the day?

Answer 1

There were 308 hammers left at the end of Saturday.

Explanation:

We can write the equation for this problem as:

`r = h - s`

Where:

`r` is the hammers remaining - what we are trying to calculate.
`h` is the number of hammers to start - 350
`s` is the number of hammers sold - 12% so 350.

We will need to first calculate s:

"Percent" or "%" means "out of 100" or "per 100", Therefore 12% can be written as `12/100`.

When dealing with percents the word "of" means "times" or "to multiply".

Putting this altogether we can write this equation and solve for `s` while keeping the equation balanced:

`s = 12/100 xx 350`

`s = 4200/100`

`s = 42`

We can number solve the equation for the remaining hammers by substitution:

`r = 350 - 42`

`r = 308`