NCERT Solutions for Class 8th Maths Chapter 1 In-text Questions — Using Percentages

Book page 15 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

They are at a shop to buy badam drink mix. They are looking at two products and wondering which has a larger share of badam. Can you figure it out? Which product uses a smaller proportion of food chemicals? [DEF: sugar 99 g, milk solids 30 g, badam powder 12 g, food chemicals 9 g, total weight 150 g. Zacni: sugar 272 g, milk solids 64 g, badam powder 40 g, food chemicals 24 g, total weight 400 g.]

Answer

Zacni has the larger share of badam. Neither uses a smaller proportion of food chemicals — the two are equal.

Badam in DEF = 12/150 × 100 = 8%
Badam in Zacni = 40/400 × 100 = 10%

Food chemicals in DEF = 9/150 × 100 = 6%
Food chemicals in Zacni = 24/400 × 100 = 6%

Why it happens: Reading the raw grams misleads you twice over. Zacni lists 40 g of badam against DEF's 12 g — more than three times as much — but the packet is also much larger, so the share rises only from 8% to 10%. And Zacni's 24 g of food chemicals looks far worse than DEF's 9 g, yet as a proportion of what you actually drink the two are identical at 6%. Comparing packets of different sizes is exactly the situation percentages were invented for.

Q2.

Complete this table by calculating the percentages to answer the questions:

	Sugar	Milk Solids	Badam Powder	Food Chemicals
DEF	66%
Zacni

The table printed on page 15. DEF’s sugar entry is filled in as the worked example.

Answer

	Sugar	Milk Solids	Badam Powder	Food Chemicals
DEF (total 150 g)	66%	20%	8%	6%
Zacni (total 400 g)	68%	16%	10%	6%

DEF: 99/150 = 66% | 30/150 = 20% | 12/150 = 8% | 9/150 = 6%
Zacni: 272/400 = 68% | 64/400 = 16% | 40/400 = 10% | 24/400 = 6%

Did you know? In both packets sugar is the largest ingredient by a long way — two-thirds of the contents. Madhu's joke, that it should be called a “sugar drink mix”, is arithmetically fair.

Q3.

Check if the percentages of each product add up to 100.

Answer

DEF: 66 + 20 + 8 + 6 = 100 ✓
Zacni: 68 + 16 + 10 + 6 = 100 ✓

The weights agree as well: 99 + 30 + 12 + 9 = 150 g, and 272 + 64 + 40 + 24 = 400 g.

Why it happens: Each percentage is one ingredient divided by the total weight. Adding them adds the numerators over a common denominator, and the ingredients add back to the total weight — so the sum must be total/total = 1 = 100%. If a label's percentages did not add to 100, either an ingredient has been left off the list or one of the figures is wrong. That makes this a genuinely useful check on any packet you pick up.

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