Amount vs number

Amount is used with mass nouns. In other words, amount should be used with nouns that cannot be counted individually, also called non-count nouns.

When amount is used as a verb, it means to become or to equal.

Examples:

1. 2016 has seen an increase in the amount of web traffic devoted to travel research.
2. Our expenditures for the fiscal third quarter amount to $34,000.

Like amount, as a noun number refers to the quantity of something. Unlike amount, however, number is used with count nouns.

Number can also be a verb, where it means to count or to add up to.

Examples:

1. The government in recent months also has enforced curfews to reduce electricity use—a practice that has trimmed operating hours at malls and therefore cut back the number of screenings a cinema can squeeze in during a day.
2. To number the stars is not a trivial undertaking.

Percent vs percentage

 Percentage is not used with a number, just with an ordinary adjective.

Examples:

1. Test results showed higher percentages in most subjects, sometimes up to 20 percent higher.
2. Rates went down by a large percentage.

Percent is generally used with a number.

Examples:

1. More than 95% of the participants who responded to the survey reported positive results.
2. Forty percent of the chocolate was missing.

 Adverbs describing a change

Examples:

Linking sentences

Examples:

Exercise to check yourself

1. In Britain people spent the smallest number/amount of money on personal stereos.
2. Going out to restaurants decreased dramatically to ten percentage/percent.
3. The graph shows that the percentage/percent of 15 to 30-year-olds who are theatre-goers is higher than other groups.