42 is What Percent of 28?

How to work it out

1. Divide the part by the whole: 42 ÷ 28 = 1.5
2. Multiply by 100: 1.5 × 100 = 150%
3. Check: Work backwards: 150% of 28 is 1.5 × 28 = 42.

Another method. As a proportion of part to whole: 42/28 = p/100, so p = 42 × 100 ÷ 28 = 150%. Both methods always give the same answer.

In a spreadsheet: =42/28*100. Dividing the wrong way round (whole ÷ part) gives a different answer. The number after “of” is always the whole, so it goes on the bottom.

What the result means

42 is more than the whole amount (1.5 times as much) of 28. 42 goes past 28 by 14, which is another 50% on top of the whole.

Targets: selling 42 items against a target of 28 means reaching 150% of the target, beating it by 50%.

Turning it around

If you know that 42 is 150% of a number, you can get that number back: 42 ÷ 1.5 = 28. And 28 as a percentage of 42 is 66.6667%, a different answer, because the whole has changed.

Related results

The other way round: 28 is what percent of 42?. Swapping the numbers gives a different answer: 28 is 66.6667% of 42. The two percentages multiply to 10,000 (150 × 66.6667 = 10,000), because 42/28 and 28/42 are reciprocals.

Practice