Percentages Worksheets Generator

Four question types

Of an amount — what is 25% of 80. Percent change — increase 40 by 10%, decrease 60 by 25%. Percent to fraction — write 75% in its simplest form. Mixed draws from all three.

Sixteen questions by default with an answer key.

Per cent means per hundred

Say it that way and half the topic explains itself. 25% is 25 out of every 100, which is 25/100, which is a quarter.

Pupils who hold that translation can convert in either direction without a rule, and pupils who have only learnt "move the decimal two places" are lost the moment a question is phrased unusually. It is worth the ten minutes at the start.

The 10% method

The single most useful technique here, and it is worth more than any formula.

Ten per cent is one tenth, which anyone can find. From there: 5% is half of it, 20% is double, 15% is the ten plus the five, 1% is a tenth again. 35% of 60 becomes 6 plus 3 plus 12, which is 21, done in your head at a bus stop with no calculator anywhere.

Teach this before the multiply-by-the-decimal method. It builds a feel for whether an answer is sensible, which the mechanical route never does.

Increase and decrease

Two routes, and the second is the one that scales.

Find the percentage and add it on — that works and it is two steps. Or use a multiplier: a 10% increase is ×1.1, a 25% decrease is ×0.75. One step, and it is the method that survives into compound interest, into depreciation, into reverse percentages, all places where the add-on approach becomes unworkable.

The classic trap is worth setting deliberately: a 20% rise followed by a 20% fall does not return you to where you started. It lands at 96%, because the fall is taken from a bigger number. Every pupil should meet that once.

Converting to a fraction

Write it over 100, then simplify. 75% is 75/100 is 3/4.

The simplifying is where marks are lost, which makes this mode quietly a factors exercise wearing a percentage costume. A pupil who is shaky on highest common factors will produce 15/20 and stop.

Where it is used

Sale prices, VAT, tips, interest, test scores, statistics in every newspaper. It is the piece of school mathematics with the widest reach into ordinary adult life, and the one where a shaky grasp costs people actual money.

Level: roughly ages ten to fifteen, depending on mode. Related: fractions practice and factors and multiples.