Anything that involves percentages.
In: Mathematics
The term “percent” literally means “per 100”. So a value of 20% is 20 per 100, which is the fraction 20/100 (I’m not simplifying fractions because it makes more sense here). Anytime you see a X%, you can replace it with the fraction X/100
Normally you see percentages in relation to a value. If you have a product that costs $30, but it says it’s 20% off, then you find 20% of $30. This is just 30 * 20/100, which is 6, so 20% of $30 is $6. Since it’s 20% off, we need to subtract the $6 from the original $30 to get the new price of $24.
If something has a 20% increase, then you take the original value, and add an extra amount, where the extra amount is equal to 20% of the original value. For example, a city has a population of 10,000 people, but then after tourists come in, they say there is a 20% increase, then the new population is 10,000 + (20% of 10,000) = 10,000 + 2,000 = 12,000.
A percentage can be greater than 100%, it just doesn’t make sense all the time. If a product had a 150% discount, it would have a negative price. One place you do see percentages over 100% is in loan repayments. For example, if a loan has a 150% interest rate a month, and I borrow $100, after one month, I’ll owe $100 + (150% of $100) = $100 + $150 = $250.
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