A pie shop sold 1,550 pies in a month. If 30% of the pies the shop sold were banana cream pies, how many banana cream pies did the shop sell in the month?

The formal formula for calculating the number given a percentage is:

n = (t/100) * p, where

t is the total number of pies and p is the percentage of the total.

Therefore,

n = 1550/100 * 30 = 465

A short cut is to express the percentage as a fraction: 30% = 0.3, and simply multiply the total by this fraction:

1550 * 0.3 = 465