Maths question ?????

Hi, Hope someone her would able to help out in this please. It might be simple question which I couldn’t able to understand or perhaps couldn’t able to work out.
I was practicing some numerical reasoning test for the job hunting:-/. The following is the following is the question:

In the UK, what was the percentage increase in the total number of cars between 1995 and 2000?

32.1%
15.0%
58.0%
16.6%

The answer is 16.6% at least know that J by I don’t know how it is. Values for the above question can be found in the figure []

My approach for that problem was to:

• Calculate total number of cars in 1995 è 808
• Calculate total number of cars in 2000 è 942
• Find the difference between two years è 942 – 808 = 134
• Ands then find the percentage of that 134.

But that doesn’t get the value 16.6% which I am looking for. How do I work around this problem? I know, the problem itself is very simple, but my understanding of solving the problem is not right. Can anyone here, able to help me out here please?

Thank you

ssharish

134/808 = 0.1658 = ~16.6% to me.

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Mats

Originally Posted by matsp

134/808 = 0.1658 = ~16.6% to me.

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Mats

Never realised it would so simple. But I was dividing it by the 134/( 808 + 942 ) * 100. Which was wrong. . So why did you choose 808 rather than the 942 or the total of both. I through, to find the percentage, you need at least the Small part of the value / total sum of value * 100. And hence i was ( 808 + 942 )!!

Thanks matps

ssharish

Percentage change is a difficult matter, but if you are after how many percent something increased, then it's the difference divided by the original number. If, on the other hand, you wanted to know how many percent of the current cars where introduced within 1995-2000 (assuming no cars were "destroyed", which of course is a bizarre assumption), then you would use the 134/942.
808 + 942 doesn't make much sense in this calculation, as adding the number of cars that existed in 1995 to the number of cars in 2000 - what do you get then. It MAY be valid to average the number, e.g. "an approximation of the number of cars in mid-1997 [halfway between 1995 and 2000] is (808 + 942) / 2". But it's kind of stretching things a bit.

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Mats