Ron Larson
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1.3 Using Percent

1.3 Using Percent
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  • Math Help

    We have already talked about the importance of unit analysis. In this section, we begin the second critical skill that you must develop for success in mathematics. That skill is knowing how to find and how to interpret percent.

    This section provides only a brief review of percent. Be sure that you are completely comfortable with this concept. Check yourself with the following exercises.

    Review Exercises

    1. Write 0.5 as a percent.
    2. Write 0.5% as a decimal.
    3. What is 20% of 48?
    4. 30 is what percent of 90?
    5. What is 25% of 500?

    Answers

    1. 0.5 is one-half or 50%. (Move decimal point 2 places to the right.)
    2. 0.5% is less than 1%. In decimal form, it is 0.005.
    3. 10% of 48 is 4.8. So, 20% is 9.6.
    4. 30 is one-third of 90. So, 30 is thirty three and one third percent of 90.
    5. 25% is one-fourth. So, 25% of 500 is 125.
  • Consumer Suggestion

    Click here to see how much land the Federal Government owns in your state. Or use a search engine to search for the phrase "land owned by federal government."

  • Checkpoint Solution

    Alaska has a land area of 571,951 square miles. According to the table on page 24, 69.1% of this is owned by the federal government.

    69.1% of 571,951 = 0.691 times 571,951 = 395,218 miles squared

    So, the federal government owns about 395,200 square miles of Alaska.

    In Example 1, we found that the federal government owns about 92,800 square miles of Nevada. So, the federal government owns much more land in Alaska than it does in Nevada.

    There are about 3.5 million square miles of land in the United States. About 67% of that land is owned by individuals, corporations, and states. The remaining land is owned by the federal government and is administered for the most part by four federal agencies:

    1. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
    2. The National Park Service (NPS) (U.S. Department of Interior)
    3. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) (U.S. Department of Interior)
    4. The Forest Service (FS) (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

    (source: Bureau of Land Management)

  • Comments (2)

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    system user
    Guest   7 months ago |
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    system user
    Ron Larson (author)1 decade ago |
    The graphic in Example 1 is not intended to show the actual regions that are owned by the Federal Government. It is only intended to show the percent of each state that is owned by the Federal Government.
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