How to Turn a Fraction into a Percent

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Convert Fraction to Percent in 2 Easy Steps

 

Free Step-by-Step Guide: Fraction to Percent in 2 Easy Steps

 

Knowing how to turn a fraction into a percent is a simple math skill that can help you solve problems in the classroom as well as in the real-world. When you understand how to turn fraction to percent, you can quickly and easily solve problems and make conversions, which is an incredibly useful skill that everyone should learn at some point.

This free guide on turning fraction to percent will teach you how to turn a fraction into a percent by following a simple 2-step method that you can use to solve a variety of math problems involving fractions and percents. To help you to learn this skill, we will work through three example problems of how to make a fraction into a percent, which will give you a great amount of practice and experience with this skill.

While we recommend that you work through each section of our fraction to percent guide, you can use the Table of Contents links below to jump to any section that you choose:

Table of Contents (Jump To):

 

Figure 01: Fraction to Percent Relationship

 

Review: Fraction to Percent Relationships

Let’s start off with a quick review of the fraction to percent relationship along with some important math vocabulary related to this topic.

What is the relationship between a fraction and a percent?

In math, fractions and percents are two different ways of expressing the same concept: a part and a whole.

A fraction, like 4/5, means that there is a whole divided into 5 equal parts, and you have 4 of those parts. The part is the numerator (the value above the fraction line), and the whole is the denominator (the value below the fraction line).

A percent, like 80%, means that there is a whole represented by 100%, and you have 80 equal parts of that whole. In other words, a percent is a fraction where the denominator is always 100 (i.e. a percent is the same thing as a fraction, but it is always out of 100). So, the fraction 4/5 can be expressed as a percent by multiplying it by 100 as follows:

  • 4/5 x 100 = 400/5 = 80%

Therefore, we can say that the fraction 4/5 expressed as a percent is 80% (as shown in Figure 01 above).

Understanding the relationship between fractions and percents is key to learning how to turn a fraction into a percent will help you to make fast and accurate conversions between measurements, make comparisons involving data, and solve properties related to topics including sales, taxes, discounts, statistics, and even exam scores.

 

Figure 02: How to make a fraction into a percent in two steps.

 

How to Turn a Fraction into a Percent in 2 Easy Steps

Now that we have reviewed the relationship between fractions and percents, let’s learn a simple two-step method for how to make a fraction into a percent:

How to Turn a Fraction into a Percent

  • Step One: Divide the numerator by the denominator to convert the fraction into a decimal.

  • Step Two: Multiply the result by 100 and express as a percent using a % sign.

For example, let’s turn the fraction 1/2 into a percent by using this two-step method:

Step One: Start by dividing the numerator by the denominator and express the result as a decimal:

  • 1/2 = 1 ÷ 2 = 0.5

Step Two: Multiply by 100 and express as a percent:

  • 0.5 x 100 = 50 → 50%

So, the fraction 1/2 is equivalent to 50% (as shown in Figure 02 above).

 

Figure 03: How to convert fraction to percent in two steps.

 

Fraction to Percent: Example #1

Problem: Convert 3/4 to a percent.

Let’s gain some experience with using our two-step method for how to turn a fraction into a percent by applying it to the fraction 3/4 as follows:

Step One: First, we have to divide the numerator by the denominator to express the fraction in decimal form:

  • 3/4 = 3 ÷ 4 = 0.75

Step Two: Now, multiply the result from the first step by 100 and solve:

  • 0.75 x 100 = 75 → 75%

Final Answer: The fraction 3/4 is equivalent to 75%.

The step-by-step process for solving this first example is shown in Figure 03 above.

Now, let’s go ahead and try another practice problem on how to make a fraction into a percent.

 

Figure 04: How to turn a fraction into a percent example #2 solved.

 

Fraction to Percent: Example #2

Problem: Convert 2/5 to a percent.

We can solve this next example using the same two-step method that we used to solve Example #1 as follows:

Step One: Convert the fraction to a decimal by dividing the numerator by the denominator:

  • 2/5 = 2 ÷ 5 = 0.4

Step Two: Multiply the result by 100 and express the answer as a percent (%):

  • 0.4 x 100 = 40 → 40%

Final Answer: 2/5 = 40%

Figure 04 above illustrates how we turned this fraction into a percent in two easy steps.

Are you starting to get the hang of it? Now, let’s work through one more fraction to percent practice problem.

 

Figure 05: The fraction 7/8 is equal to 87.5%

 

Fraction to Percent: Example #3

Problem: Convert 7/8 to a percent.

For this third and final example of how to make a fraction into a percent, we want to convert the fraction 7/8 into a percent, and we can use our two-step method to do that.

Step One: Divide the numerator by the denominator and express the answer as a decimal:

  • 7/8 = 7 ÷ 8 = 0.875

Step Two: Multiply the decimal from Step One by 100 and express the answer as a percent (%):

  • 0.875 x 100 = 87.5 → 87.5%

Final Answer: 7/8 = 87.5%

Figure 05 above shows how we used our two-step method to solve Example #3.

 
 

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