Question:In a high school with 240 students, 60 students are absent on a particular day. What percentage of the students...

1. TRANSLATE the problem information

• Given information:
  • Total students: 240
  • Absent students: 60
  • Need to find: percentage of students present
• This tells us we need to find what portion of all students are actually in school today.

2. INFER the solution approach

• To find percentage present, we need to know how many students are present first
• \(\mathrm{Present\:students = Total\:students - Absent\:students}\)
• Then calculate: \(\mathrm{\frac{Present\:students}{Total\:students} \times 100\%}\)

3. SIMPLIFY to find present students

• \(\mathrm{Present\:students = 240 - 60 = 180\:students}\)

4. SIMPLIFY to calculate the percentage

• \(\mathrm{Percentage\:present = \frac{180}{240} \times 100\%}\)
• \(\mathrm{\frac{180}{240} = 0.75}\)
• \(\mathrm{0.75 \times 100\% = 75\%}\)

Answer: C) 75%

Why Students Usually Falter on This Problem

Most Common Error Path:

Weak TRANSLATE skill: Students misunderstand what percentage they need to calculate and instead find the percentage of students who are absent.

They calculate: \(\mathrm{\frac{60}{240} \times 100\% = 25\%}\)

This leads them to select Choice A (25%) instead of recognizing that the question asks for the percentage present, not absent.

Second Most Common Error:

Inadequate SIMPLIFY execution: Students find the correct number of present students (180) but make an error in the percentage calculation, either forgetting to multiply by 100 or making an arithmetic mistake.

This causes confusion about which answer choice to select and may lead to guessing among the remaining options.

The Bottom Line:

The key challenge is carefully reading what the problem asks for - percentage present versus percentage absent - and then executing the two-step process correctly.