Is 35%=0.35 not as a percentage of a number but just on its own?

Question

I was having a disagreement with a number of people commenting on a Daily Mail story and I got a few red arrows indicating disapproval to my comment that 35% is not a number but a proportion and that it is not 0.35 unless we are talking about 35% of 1. This derived from the following purported test question:

Arrange the following numbers from the smallest to largest:
a) 1/3
b) 0.305
c) 35%
d) 3/10

I argued that 35% is not a number but rather a proportion.

Not referencing the above test question but in general, is 35%=0.35 (not 35% of x but just 35% by its own)?

Answer 1

In this context, a percent is a number just like the others.

So $35\% = 0.35$; it's the largest of the four.

Answer 2

The symbol % means "per cent". In this case, "cent" means $100$, so % means $/100$.

35% means $35/100$ or $0.35$.

We often multiply percents by other quantities, like 80% of 200. Here, "of" designates multiplication. In the Daily Mail story there is no "of", so no multiplication and no ambiguity.