In a recent survey of 288 people, 72 said that their favorite color of car was white. What percent of the people surveyed liked white cars?

If you translate this problem literally, it is saying, “72 is what percent of 288?”. And the equational translation of that is 72 = (x/100) • 288
[ “is” means equal to (=) // “what” means x or another variable // “percent” means divided by 100” // “of” means multiplication. ]
Then you solve that equation.
(you can check it by googling what is 25% of 288. )