From: ray <rmerewe1@san.rr.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 1998121714:25:32
Subject: percents

Claudia quoted the problem correctly:"What percent of 11 is 55?", but
set up the problem wrong and is headed for 20% as an answer.  The
answer is 500% (see the first explanation by Jamie).

Which brings up the idea of giving the student a few (say 5) mileposts
to memorize:
25% is 1/4
50% is 1/2
100% is all of it
200% is twice as much
1000% is 10 times as much.

The student should then be encouraged to always check a calculation
against one of the memorized mileposts for reasonableness.

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