Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.Two broadband providers show their monthly cost on straight-line graphs, with the cost in pounds on the vertical axis and the data used in gigabytes on the horizontal axis. Provider X's line passes through (0, 15) and (100, 35). Provider Y's line passes through (0, 5) and (100, 45). Work out which provider is cheaper for a customer who uses 40 gigabytes in a month.

2.A photo is enlarged so that its new width is 1.4 times its original width. Write the multiplier that would scale the new width back down to the original width, as a fraction in its simplest form.

3.A water butt is being filled from a hosepipe at a constant rate while a small leak drains water out at a constant rate, giving a constant net rate of change. The volume of water in the butt, V litres, is shown on a straight-line graph against time, t minutes. The line passes through the points (5, 20) and (15, 60). The butt is empty at t = 0. Work out how many minutes it takes to reach a volume of 100 litres.

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.Two numbers are in the ratio 5 : 8. The larger number is 40. Work out the smaller number.

6.A scale drawing of a car park has a scale of 1 : 300. On the drawing, the car park has an area of 15 cm². Work out the real area of the car park, in square metres.

7.A shop sells identical pens. The total cost, C pence, of n pens is given by C = 12n. Write the ratio n : C in its simplest form.

8.A 750 g box of cereal costs £2.70. A 500 g box of the same cereal costs £1.95. Work out which box is better value, and its cost per 100 g.

9.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.

10.A cyclist travels d kilometres in t hours. Write down an expression, in terms of d and t, for the cyclist's average speed in km/h.

11.Two scale plans of the same football pitch are drawn: Plan A has a scale of 1 : 1000 and Plan B has a scale of 1 : 200. A pitch length is 8 cm on Plan A. Work out the length of the same pitch on Plan B, in centimetres.

12.Four graphs are described below. Each shows one quantity plotted against another. Write down the description of the graph that shows two quantities in direct proportion.

13.A straight line passes through the points (1, 20) and (5, 8). Work out the gradient of the line.

14.In a fruit bowl, the ratio of apples to oranges is 5 : 3. Work out what percentage of the fruit in the bowl is apples.

15.A metal cylinder has a mass of 356.5 g and a volume of 47 cm³. Work out the density of the cylinder, in g/cm³, to 1 decimal place.