How is a percentage defined in mathematical terms?

A percentage is fundamentally a way of expressing a number as a fraction of 100. This means that when calculating a percentage, you take the value in question and multiply it by 1/100. This process allows you to understand how a value compares to a whole represented as 100.

Choice C captures this definition accurately, as it emphasizes the relationship of the value to 100 through the multiplication by 1/100, effectively converting any number into a percentage format.

In practical terms, if you want to find out what percentage a number represents in relation to a whole, you would multiply that number by 1/100, resulting in the percentage representation. For instance, if you have a value of 25 and you want to find out what percentage it is of 100, you compute it as 25 * 1/100 = 0.25, or 25%.

This understanding is key in applications ranging from finance to statistics, where percentages are often used to convey proportions and comparisons in clear and concise terms.