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.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.
- 2.Work out 15% of £40, using 10% and 5%.
- 3.Write 0.25 as a percentage.
- 4.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.
- 5.There are 2500 electric cars registered in a town. The number is predicted to increase by 6% each year. Work out the predicted number of electric cars after 3 years, to the nearest whole number.
- 6.A concert hall has 300 seats. 20% of the seats are in the balcony. Work out how many of the seats are in the balcony.
- 7.A box holds 140 pens. 25% of the pens are red. Work out how many of the pens are red.
- 8.Aisha invests £3200 in Account A, which pays 5% compound interest each year. She also invests £3200 in Account B, which pays 3% simple interest each year. Work out how much more Account A is worth than Account B after 2 years.
- 9.A machine is bought for £8500. Its value depreciates by 6% each year. Work out the value of the machine after 3 years, to the nearest pound.
- 10.A colony of bacteria has 400 bacteria. The number increases by 15% each hour. Work out the number of bacteria after 1 hour.
- 11.There are 400 students at a school. 25% of them have a brother, 40% have a sister and 15% have both a brother and a sister. Work out how many of the students have neither a brother nor a sister.
- 12.After a 20% discount, a jacket costs £48. Work out the original price of the jacket.
- 13.A laptop priced at £520 is first increased by 15%, and then the new price is decreased by 20%. Work out the final price of the laptop.
- 14.A cinema has 250 seats. 12% of the seats are reserved. Work out how many of the seats are reserved.
- 15.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.
- 16.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.
- 17.A jacket normally costs £65. In a sale it is reduced by 20%, and the shop then takes a further £5 off at the till. Work out the final price.
- 18.A laptop costs £800 when new. Its value decreases by 25% of its value at the start of each year. Work out how much value the laptop loses in the second year.
- 19.In a test, Amelia answered 18 of the 24 questions correctly. Work out the percentage of the questions she answered correctly.
- 20.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.
- 21.£5000 is invested in an account paying 4% compound interest each year. Work out the total interest earned after 3 years.
- 22.A sponsored walk raised £350 for charity. 20% of the money raised is spent on equipment. Work out how much is spent on equipment.
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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