Let's explore what 100 times 0.2 really means. This calculation appears everywhere in daily life - from calculating a 20 percent discount while shopping, to checking your phone's 20 percent battery charge, or understanding what a 20 percent slice of data represents in a chart.
To understand this calculation, let's first convert the decimal 0.2 into a fraction. Zero point two is the same as one-fifth. We can visualize this by taking a unit bar and dividing it into five equal parts. One of these parts represents one-fifth, which equals 0.2.
Now let's see what happens when we multiply 100 by one-fifth. We can visualize this by taking a bar representing 100 and dividing it into five equal segments. Each segment contains 20 units. When we take one-fifth of 100, we're selecting one of these segments, which gives us 20.
Here's another way to visualize this calculation using an area model. We have a 10 by 10 grid representing 100 cells. Twenty percent means 2 rows out of 10, which gives us exactly 20 cells. The remaining 80 cells represent what's left after taking 20 percent.
Let's apply this to a real shopping scenario. You find an item priced at 100 dollars with a 20 percent discount. The discount amount is 100 times 0.2, which equals 20 dollars. This means you save 20 dollars and pay only 80 dollars for the item.