2/27/2014

Percentage Change - graduatewings.co.uk

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Percentage Change
The topic of percentages is one of the most important topics to learn for numerical aptitude tests. Occupational psychologists use such mathematical functions as psychometric measures to gauge numerical proficiency of candidates. Graduates, post-graduates or experienced professionals may find such maths operations incorporated into wide range of assessments including data interpretation or numeracy tests which present with various facts and figures. For example, test takers may be required to inspect graph or chart and infer the greatest or lowest percent change for particular set of data. Dont be daunted by complexity of such concepts but rather to come to terms with these study the below paragraphs which will provide you with useful advice and will break down the key concepts in an easy and digestible format.

How to work it out

The basic method to carry out operations related to percentage change i.e. percent increase between two values A and B could be written as follows (B A) / A x 100 whereas (A B) / A x 100 would represent decrease. If you have some kind of familiarity with such operations have a go and try to get the below question right within 60 seconds.

Which month represents the greatest percentage change in desktop sales compared to previous months? Any luck on the above? Note that you dont have to use calculator to work this out. Visually inspect data and you will see that the greatest percent change in desktop computer sales took place between the month of February and March. The question may be tricky particularly for new starters as between second and third month number of sales increased by 200 whereas between the third and fourth month sales went back to original level. Remember, in percentage terms this will not result in the same outcome. You can check this simply by finding out relative increase and decrease between particular months. If you are not familiar how to work this out then refer to numerical percent increase and decrease to see the breakdown of such workings. In the above you will find increase of 100% in the first instance whereas in the later decrease of 37.5%. Hence, greater proportional change occurred between February and March. However, eyeballing the data may be all you need to do in order to answer the question. Our numerical mental arithmetic section will provide you further examples of visual data analysis in the scope of aptitude testing. To further demonstrate tricks and potential traps of numerical reasoning assessments try to work out between which period laptop sales assumed the lowest relative change. Again, you may argue that between second and third month as the trades represent the lowest difference however this is not true. The lowest proportional change of laptops was recorded during April and May where number of computers fall down by 25% compared to other periods. You can work this out as follows: (400 300) / 400 x 100.

Quick Tips
To give you a tip for speeding up your computations and calculating similar questions effectively dont input the numbers into your calculator as per the above but rather make in your head as many mental computations as you can. For example, you can easily calculate the difference between two values. In the above case, 400 and 300 and then work out on your device only division 100/400. To convert decimal to percentage you can perform such multiplication mentally by simply shifting the coma to the right by two decimal places. Keep these steps in your mind during your practice and make it habit to use shortcut by working out as many easy calculations in your head as possible. Remember, the more you practice the more you will become swift in performing such mental steps.

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