1 Answer

Example:   You have taken a test with 24 questions and have answered 17 of them correctly.  You want to know what the percentage correct is.  Divide the number right (17) by the number possible (24).  You will have an answer of less than 1; it will be represented with a decimal point.  17/24 is .708 (only go to 1000th place).  Percent would be 71% (Round up according to what is in the 1000th place).  .04 is 4%      .8 is 80%

A percentage is based on 1.   1.00 is the whole thing.  Anything less than the whole thing is expressed with the symbol %.  
Percentages are expressed in x/100.   If you have a decimal number to change into a percent, it's pretty easy.   .74   would become 74%   It means 74/100 either way.   .748  would become 75%

Sometime you have more than 100%.....If you had three large pizzas, each cut into 8 pieces and you had 4 of one, 3 of another, and 2 of the third leftover, you would have 9/8.  To express this as a percentage, divide the number of pieces by the number of pieces in one whole pizza.  9 divided by 8 = 1.125    As a percent, it would be 113%.  

Let me know if I need to clarify something further.  It's not really hard if you understand decimals and "base 10".