24 questions across ratio, direct and inverse proportion, compound measures and area and volume scale factors.
⚗️ Ratio and proportion mastery — Higher
Ratio, proportion and rates of change is 20% of a Higher paper and it is the area that rewards method over recall. This sheet works through it in one sitting: simplifying and sharing in a ratio, including the questions that give you one share or the difference rather than the total; expressing one quantity as a fraction or percentage of another; direct and inverse proportion, both numerically and as an equation with a constant k; compound measures — speed, density and pressure — with unit conversions built in rather than avoided; and the similar-shapes work where lengths, areas and volumes scale by the factor, its square and its cube. That last group is where Higher candidates lose the most marks in this area, so it is deliberately over-represented here.
- 1.A company's turnover this year is £180,000. Last year's turnover was £120,000. Write down this year's turnover as a percentage of last year's turnover.
- 2.Write the ratio 5 : 8 in the form 1 : n.
- 3.Write 400 g : 1.5 kg as a ratio in its simplest form.
- 4.A garden centre sells two mathematically similar sacks of grass seed. The amount of lawn a sack can treat is proportional to the volume of seed inside it. The smaller sack is 20 cm tall and treats a lawn of area 30 m². The larger sack is 40 cm tall. A gardener needs to treat a lawn with an area of 500 m² using only the larger sacks. Work out the minimum number of larger sacks needed.
- 5.A jug holds 3 litres of a drink that is 60% fruit juice. 1 litre of water is added to the jug. Work out the percentage of the new mixture that is fruit juice.
- 6.Grace's mean mark in her maths tests rises from 70 to 84. Work out the percentage increase in her mean mark.
- 7.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.
- 8.A spring's extension is directly proportional to the force applied to it. A force of 5 N produces an extension of 12 mm. Work out the extension produced by a force of 20 N.
- 9.Two mathematically similar garden ponds have surface areas of 12 m² and 27 m². The fencing needed to go around the smaller pond costs £96. Assuming the cost of fencing is proportional to the perimeter of the pond, work out the cost of fencing the larger pond.
- 10.In a school choir the ratio of boys to girls is 3:4. When 6 more boys join the choir, the ratio of boys to girls becomes 1:1. Work out how many girls are in the choir.
- 11.The exchange rate is £1 = €1.15. Convert £200 to euros.
- 12.A car uses fuel at a constant rate. It uses 24 litres of fuel to travel 300 km. Assuming the same rate, work out how many litres of fuel are needed for a journey of 175 km.
- 13.It takes 8 painters 6 days to paint a fence. Working at the same rate, work out how many days 4 painters would take to paint the same fence.
- 14.2.4 kg of cheese costs £36. Work out the cost of 1.5 kg of the same cheese.
- 15.A recipe for pastry uses flour and butter in the ratio 3:2. A baker has 180 g of butter and wants to make pastry using all of it. Work out the total mass of pastry the baker can make.
- 16.A scale model of a shipping container is built at a scale of 1 : 30, using material with the same density as the real container. The model has a mass of 400 g. Work out the mass of the real container, giving your answer in kilograms.
- 17.The density of a type of wood is 0.8 g/cm³. Work out the mass of a piece of this wood with a volume of 150 cm³.
- 18.Noah runs 2 km in 10 minutes. Work out how long he takes to run 5 km at the same speed.
- 19.A mortar mix is made from sand and cement in the ratio 5 : 3. Write the ratio of sand to the total mix in its simplest form.
- 20.A rectangular garden has its length and width in the ratio 5:3. Given that the perimeter of the garden is 64 m, work out the width of the garden.
- 21.A factory machine produces bottles at a constant rate. In 45 minutes it produces 810 bottles. The factory needs 2,160 bottles for an order. Working at the same rate, work out how many minutes it will take to produce the order.
- 22.The number of members of a running club increases from 45 to 54. Work out the percentage increase.
- 23.x × y is used to test whether two quantities are in inverse proportion. For the pairs x = 4, y = 15 and x = 6, y = 10, which statement is correct?
- 24.A delivery driver travels 45 km in the first 30 minutes of a journey, and then a further 75 km in the next 1 hour. Work out her average speed for the whole journey, in km/h.
What is on this worksheet?
The sheet holds 24 questions drawn from the MathsUK bank — the content area covered: Ratio, proportion and rates of change (statements R4, R5, R9, R10, R11, R12, R13). It is pitched at GCSE Higher and takes about 45 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 24 questions before checking — about 45 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 24 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.
Similar worksheets worth a look
- 🧮 Paper 1 non-calculator warm-up — Higher · 20 questions · ~25 min
- 🎯 Grade 4 pass booster · 25 questions · ~40 min
- 📈 Quadratics: factorise, complete the square, formula · 24 questions · ~45 min
- ⭕ Circle theorems practice · 18 questions · ~40 min