Question

Peter answered 86% of a 50-question test correctly. How many correct answers did he give? How many answers were incorrect?

Answer 1

Hint: Assume the total number of questions as 100%. For correct answers find 86% of the total number of questions i.e. 50 and for incorrect answers, subtract the correct answers from the total number of questions or find $100-86=14\%$ of 50.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Percentage: Percent means per 100. It is denoted by ‘%’.
For example 1% means 1 of 100 or $\dfrac{1}{100}$
Given the total number of questions $=50$
Let’s assume this as 100%
As Peter answered 86% questions correctly
So the correct answers he gave is equal to 86% of the total number of questions.
Mathematically, $50\times 86\%=50\times \dfrac{86}{100}=\dfrac{86}{2}=43$
Now for the incorrect answers we can subtract that of correct answers from the total number of questions.
So, number of incorrect answers$=50-43=7$
And the number of correct answers$=43$ (as we got earlier)
This is the required solution.

Note: The total number of questions should be assumed as 100%. For the number of correct answers we can directly find the 86% of the total number of questions. For the number of incorrect answers we can also subtract the percentage of correct answers from that of total percentage i.e. 100%. This is the alternative method for solving such questions.
The number of incorrect answers is equal to $100-86=14\%$ of the total number of questions.
Mathematically, $50\times 14\%=50\times \dfrac{14}{100}=\dfrac{14}{2}=7$
From this method also we are getting the same number of incorrect answers i.e. 7.