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Why are Percentages needed?
Last updated at February 12, 2026 by Teachoo
Class 8 (Ganita Prakash - 1, 2 & Old NCERT)
Chapter 1 Class 8 - Fractions in Disguise (Ganita Prakash II)
- Percentage - Definition
- Figure it out - Page 3, 4
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Uses of Percentages
- Percentage of Some Quantity
- Finding Percentage Quickly
- Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages
- Percentages Greater than 100
- Figure it out - Page 12, 13, 14
- Comparing Proportions using Percentage
- Percentage Increase or Decrease
- Profit and Loss
- Taxes
- Figure it out - Page 19, 20
- Growth and Compounding
- Figure it out - Page 22, 23, 24
- Depreciation
- Tricky Percentages
- Finding Mistakes in Percentages
- Figure it out - Page 28, 29, 30
Transcript
Why are Percentages needed? THE BISCUIT PROBLEM: A FRACTIONAL DILEMMA THE SOLUTION: CONVERT TO A COMMON LANGUAGE (%) THE RESULT: A CLEAR COMPARISONCONCLUSION: Variety is sweeter than Variety . Percentages make comparison easy!Imagine you are running a biscuit factory (delicious, right?). You are testing two new recipes, and you want to know which one is sweeter. Variety 1: Sugar is 9/34 of the biscuit. Variety 2: Sugar is 13/45 of the biscuit. The Problem If I ask you quickly, "Which fraction is bigger: 9/34 or 13/45 ?", you probably can't tell instantly. The denominators ( 34 and 45 ) are totally different and awkward numbers. Our brains can't easily compare "slices of 34 " vs "slices of 45 ." The Solution We translate them into a language we all speak: The Language of 100. By converting both fractions to percentages (which literally means "per 100"), we get: Variety 1: 26.47% Variety 2: 28.88% The Result Boom! It is immediately obvious that Variety 2 is sweeter. That is the superpower of percentages: Standardization. It forces all fractions to have the same denominator (100) so we can compare them fairly.
