PSLE Mathematics: Mastering Percentages with Confidence

Quick answer

Feeling stuck on percentage questions during exams? It's common to lose marks because of small mistakes or missing steps. This guide will help you understand percentages completely and avoid those slips, so you can tackle PSLE questions with confidence.

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What you need to know

Percentages show how much of something there is compared to 100. It's like saying "out of 100 parts, how many do we have?" If you have 25%, that means 25 out of 100 parts.

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Understanding Percentages in PSLE

Most Primary 5 students struggle with this transition. Percentages are everywhere: discounts in shopping, marks in exams, and even in your daily meals (like "30% less sugar"). To master them, you need to know how to find percentages of numbers, convert between percentages, fractions, and decimals, and solve problems involving percentage changes.

Breaking Down the Basics

This topic becomes easier when broken into smaller steps. Let's start with a simple trick I teach my students.

Step 1: Understand that "percent" means "out of 100".
Why: This helps you know that 25% is the same as 25/100 or 0.25.

Step 2: Practice converting percentages to fractions and decimals.
Why: This is useful because exam questions often require you to switch between these forms.

Step 3: Learn to calculate percentage increase or decrease.
Why: Many PSLE questions ask you to find how much something has increased or decreased by a percentage.

Quick check

Try these questions:

1. What is 20% of 150?
2. Convert 75% into a fraction.
3. A shirt costs $50, and there's a 10% discount. How much do you save?

Answers:

1. 30
2. 3/4
3. $5

Common mistakes students make

1. Forgetting to convert percentages to decimals: Often, students forget that to find 25% of a number, you need to multiply by 0.25, not 25.

2. Mixing up increase and decrease: This part trips everyone up. Remember, to find the new amount after an increase, add the percentage of the original amount. For a decrease, subtract it.

3. Not simplifying fractions: When converting percentages to fractions, always simplify. For example, 50% should be simplified to 1/2, not remain as 50/100.

Exam tip

When answering percentage questions, always show your working. Marks are often given for correct steps, even if the final answer is wrong. This means you can still get some marks even if a small mistake is made at the end.

Worked examples

Question 1

What is 30% of 60?

Solution

Step 1: Convert the percentage to a decimal: 30% = 0.30.
Why: This helps in using multiplication for calculation.

Step 2: Multiply 0.30 by 60: $0.30 \times 60 = 18$.
Why: This gives you the part of 60 that is 30%.

Question 2

A price increases by 15% from $80. What is the new price?

Solution

Step 1: Find 15% of 80: 0.15 \times 80 = 12$.
Why: This tells you how much the price increased.

Step 2: Add the increase to the original price: 80 + 12 = 92.
Why: This gives you the new price after the increase.

Question 3

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Convert 80% to a fraction and simplify.

Solution

Step 1: Write 80% as a fraction: 80/100.
Why: This expresses the percentage as a fraction.

Step 2: Simplify the fraction: 80/100 = 4/5.
Why: Simplifying makes the fraction easier to work with.

Quick summary

• Percent means "out of 100".
• Convert percentages to decimals for calculations.
• Show all steps in exams for partial marks.
• Simplify fractions when converting from percentages.
• Practice small, daily revisions to improve retention.

FAQ

Q: How do I find the percentage of a number?
A: Convert the percentage to a decimal and multiply it by the number. For example, 20% of 50 is $0.20 \times 50 = 10$.

Q: Why do we convert percentages to decimals?
A: It makes calculations easier, especially when multiplying or dividing.

Q: How do I solve percentage increase questions?
A: Find the percentage of the original number, then add it to the original number to get the new amount.

Q: Can percentages be more than 100%?
A: Yes, it means more than the whole. For instance, 150% is 1.5 times the original.

Q: What's the fastest way to improve in percentages?
A: Practice short daily revisions and use visual aids like pie charts to understand better.

Practise with free question sets

Work through exam-style questions with answers and step-by-step solutions:

• [35+ P 6 PSLE Percentage Questions for 2026/2027 (Singapore MOE Syllabus) with Answers and Explanations](/questions/p 6-percentage-questions)
• Topic study hub

[Practise unlimited questions on Tutorly.sg/app](https://www.tutorly.sg/app)

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