Question

A city has a summer carnival every year. Two years ago the carnival sold a total of 15,000 tickets. Last year it rained, so the carnival only sold 12,000 tickets. What is the percentage decrease in the number of tickets sold?

Answer 1

The actual decrease is 15000-12000, or 3000, tickets.

Divide this 3000 by the original 15000:

3000 3
----------- = ---- = 0.2. Multiplying this by 100%, we get 20%.
15000 15

"Decrease" signifies a negative quantity.
We could say either that the ticket sales decreased by 20%, or
that the change was -20%.

Answer 2

The percentage difference is 20%.

This is because 20% of 15,000 is 3,000 and the difference between 15,000 tickets and 12,000 tickets is 3,000

Hope this helps