22 questions on percentage change, reverse percentages, simple and compound interest, and depreciation.
💷 Percentages and compound interest
Percentages appear on all three papers and in more contexts than any other single topic — prices, wages, interest, VAT, population, depreciation. This sheet covers the whole of it in order. It begins with percentage of an amount and percentage change, including finding the percentage rather than applying it; moves to multipliers, which make everything after this easier; then to reverse percentages, where you are given the value after the change and asked for the original, and where subtracting instead of dividing is the commonest error in the topic; then to simple interest, compound interest and depreciation, where the multiplier is raised to a power rather than multiplied by the number of years. The last few questions mix the types without labelling them, because on the paper they are not labelled either.
- 1.Leah puts £4000 into a savings account paying 3% compound interest each year. At the end of 2 years she takes out all of the money and spends £1500 of it on a laptop. Work out how much of the money she has left.
- 2.£3000 is invested in a savings account that pays 4% compound interest each year. Work out the value of the investment after 2 years.
- 3.Work out 15% of £40, using 10% and 5%.
- 4.The price of a cycling helmet rises from £80 to £116. Work out the percentage increase.
- 5.A recipe uses 160 g of flour. Sam wants to increase the amount by 1/4. Work out the new amount of flour.
- 6.A company had 8000 employees. The number of employees decreased by 5% in the first year, and then increased by 5% in the second year. Work out the number of employees at the end of the second year, to the nearest whole number.
- 7.40% of a number is 12 more than 25% of the same number. Work out the number.
- 8.Work out 25% of 200.
- 9.A jumper is reduced by 15% in a sale to a price of £42.50. Work out the original price.
- 10.A charity fun run raises money through entry fees and donations. Entry fees raise £1,260, which is 60% of the total amount raised. Work out how much money was raised through donations.
- 11.After a price increase of 10%, a laptop costs £330. Work out the original price.
- 12.Maya buys a vintage car for £15000. Its value is expected to increase by 4% each year for 2 years. She then plans to sell the car and use £2000 of the money from the sale to buy a trailer. Work out how much money she will have left after selling the car and buying the trailer.
- 13.A jumper costs £45 at Shop A, where it is reduced by 20%. The same jumper costs £34 at Shop B, where a further 10% reduction is then applied. Work out the difference between the two reduced prices.
- 14.A laptop costs £720. A carrying case for it costs 1/9 of the price of the laptop. Work out the cost of the carrying case.
- 15.The price of a jacket increases by 50% and then decreases by 50%. Describe the overall change from the original price.
- 16.A colony of bacteria has 400 bacteria. The number increases by 15% each hour. Work out the number of bacteria after 1 hour.
- 17.The value of a motorbike falls by 12% each year. The motorbike is worth £3200 now. Write down the calculation that gives its value after 3 years.
- 18.The rent on a flat increases by 10% one year and by a further 10% the following year. Work out the overall percentage increase over the two years.
- 19.The same jumper is sold at two shops. Shop A charges £40 and Shop B charges £50. Write down the price at Shop A as a percentage of the price at Shop B.
- 20.A savings account pays 3.5% compound interest each year. Bilal invests £1200. Work out how much interest, in total, he earns after 2 years, to the nearest penny.
- 21.Priya invests £750 in a savings account that pays simple interest. After 3 years, the account contains £840. Work out the annual rate of simple interest.
- 22.A restaurant adds a service charge of 15% to a bill of £120. Work out the service charge.
What is on this worksheet?
The sheet holds 22 questions drawn from the MathsUK bank — the content areas covered: Ratio, proportion and rates of change, Number (statements R9, R16, N12). It is pitched at GCSE Foundation and takes about 40 minutes to work through in full. It is built for independent practice, with full answers at the end for self-marking.
How to use the sheet well
- Print it or open it on screen — both work. Printing is A4; the screen view fits phones and tablets.
- Do all 22 questions before checking — about 40 minutes is the guide, but there is no time pressure.
- Check the answers — press “Show answers” or print the answer page separately.
- Redo the questions you got wrong — twice as effective as doing 22 fresh ones.
- “New questions” — builds a fresh sheet on the same statements, so you can practise again without repeats.
Why this sheet helps
MathsUK worksheets use questions graded by difficulty and a fair spread of correct-answer positions (the answer is not always (a)) — so the student really has to think about each question rather than guess a pattern. Every question is tagged to a DfE content statement and checked before it enters the bank. The answers come with a step-by-step explanation, not just a value — so a wrong answer becomes a lesson.
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