Question

The owner of a hobby store needed to calculate the percentage of customers who purchase wood glue. Upon completing his survey, he noticed that 60% of the people that entered his store purchased an item. Of those customers, 15 percent purchased wood glue. What percent of the people that entered the store purchased wood glue?

• A. 8%
• B. 7%
• C. 9%
• D. 12%
• E. 15%

Hint:

When you see "percent of a percent," remember to multiply the values. A common mistake is to add or subtract them. For example, 15% of 60% is not 15% or 60%, but a smaller percentage that results from their product.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This is a problem about finding a percentage of a percentage. We need to find what 15% of 60% represents in relation to the total number of people who entered the store.
Step 2: Key Formula or Approach:
To find the percentage of a percentage, convert both percentages to decimals or fractions and then multiply them. The result can then be converted back to a percentage.
\[ \text{Final Percentage} = (\text{Percentage}_1) \times (\text{Percentage}_2) \] Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Let the total number of people who entered the store be T.
The number of people who purchased an item is 60% of T.
\[ \text{Number of purchasers} = 0.60 \times T \] Of these purchasers, 15% bought wood glue. So, the number of people who bought wood glue is 15% of the number of purchasers.
\[ \text{Number of wood glue purchasers} = 15% \times (0.60 \times T) \] Convert 15% to a decimal: 0.15.
\[ \text{Number of wood glue purchasers} = 0.15 \times 0.60 \times T \] \[ \text{Number of wood glue purchasers} = 0.09 \times T \] To express this as a percentage of the total people (T), we convert the decimal 0.09 back to a percentage.
\[ 0.09 \times 100% = 9% \] Step 4: Final Answer
Therefore, 9% of the people that entered the store purchased wood glue.