You've asked two questions.
(1) Can "percentage-wise" be used as an adjective.
Yes. "The percentage-wise method of calculating the metric has many advantages."
(2) What's the interpretation of "by one of percentage-wise and optimal gross margin" which is taken from Patent US 7979299 B1.
Part of the issue is that quote has been taken out of it's context. Also, it's missing some of the original punctuation. Here's the original context, as taken from Patent US7979299:
Methods and apparatus for optimizing markdown pricing
CLAIMS(14)
- A method of optimizing scheduling of markdown pricing for one or more related items at a plurality of retail sites, the method comprising:
for each retail site in the plurality of retail sites, identifying a type of related items based, at least in part on, whether markdown schedules for individual items would be substantially similar if optimized separately;
determining which retail sites from the plurality of retail sites have similar metrics, the metrics identifying which retail sites are equally close to selling out the type of related items by one of, percentage-wise and optimal gross margin, given a current price of the type of related items; [NOTE: emphasis added for this question/answer only]
Note that among legal documents, patents are notoriously difficult to interpret. In fact, interpretations of the meanings of patents are often decided in court within the context of an infringement of patent lawsuit!
When the phrase "by one of" is followed by a comma, colon, or "the following", it might suggest a listing of separate items. But other times, not. Let's consider another sentence which may be a bit easier to comprehend:
- "He can make great food by one of, spicy and hot recipes, to which said patent Section 6 does forth suggest patently patent stuff stuff stuff..."
Now does this mean "spicy, hot recipes" or "spicy recipes and hot recipes"? Since we have a list, it must be the latter. But additional sentence complexity can make it more ambiguous. Practically speaking, the answer could very well depend on what is decided in a court of law.
I think this is what your instructor was driving at: The second sentence can be written with a period and spoken a statement. Formally, to make it a question, the declarative “there are” should be reversed to form the interrogative “are there.”
However, as others have indicated in comments and answers, verbal tones can also be used to form a declarative question. Wikipedia explains it like this:
Intonation patterns characteristic of questions often involve a raised pitch near the end of the sentence. In English this occurs especially for yes–no questions; it may also be used for sentences that do not have the grammatical form of questions, but are nonetheless intended to elicit information (declarative questions), as in "You're not using this?”
and also says:
A question which has the same form (except for intonation) as a declarative sentence is called a declarative question.
In short, your second sentence is fine as a declarative question. However, if you were working on an exercise that was designed to help you correctly use inversion (not intonation) to form a question, I can see why your instructor might have said your question was “incorrect.”
Best Answer
The sentence is understandable, but there are several things that could be done so it wouldn't be called "wrong."
The most likely is to add a preposition before that:
But there are also other things you could do to make it more natural.
You could remove that altogether:
You could replace that with a reference to something:
You could remove that and add the reference at the end of the sentence:
You could add a reference after that:
Note that this form is somewhat ambiguous. Normally, it's taken to mean that you want to be reminded in the evening about those things.
However, it could be taken to mean that you want to be reminded right now that something is happening in the evening. This is not a normal interpretation, but some people will deliberately make that interpretation in order to turn it into a joke: