Question

15 is what percent of 12?

Answer 1

15 is 125% of 12.

Explanation:

When translating a question from English to "math", it is useful to know what some key English words mean in math:

• "is" means `=`
• "percent" means `xx 1/100`
• "of" means `xx`

With these key phrases in mind, it is not hard to translate the question:

`color(grey)"15 is what percent of 12"`
`15="   "x xx 1/100"   "xx 12`

Having translated the question into math, we can simplify and solve for `x`:

`"        "15"      "=(12x)/100`

`(""^5cancel(15) * 100)/(""^4cancel(12)) = x`

`(5 * cancel(100)^25)/(cancel(4)^1) = x`

`"    "5 * 25"    "= x" "=125`

So 15 is 125% of 12.

We can check this answer by asking, "What is 125% of 12?" (Using our translation method, this becomes `y=125xx 1/100 xx 12`.) You can see that this simplifies to finding the answer to `1.25 xx 12`, which is indeed 15.