Shooting free throws

Michelle is a starting point guard for Patterson High. In the last 10 games, she made 27 out of 42 free throws. That’s 27 made per 42 attempts.

To find the unit rate of Michelle’s accuracy with free throws, this is what you do:

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That unit rate is totally valid, but it’s kind of strange to think of Michelle making 0.64 of a basket. One way that can help everyone understand how good (or bad) Michelle is at shooting free throws is to convert the unit rate into a percentage rate.

 

It’s very easy:

.64 made per attempt = 64% accuracy

Percentage is a lot like unit rate. The difference is that unit rate is per one, and percentage rate is per 100. So in this case, we can think of Michelle making about 64 out of 100 of her free throws. Not bad!