Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.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.

2.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.

3.The amount of fuel left in a car's tank, F litres, is plotted against the distance travelled, d miles, and the points lie on a straight line. The line passes through (0, 45) and (150, 15). Work out the gradient of the line and say what it tells you.

4.Two mathematically similar tins have heights 8 cm and 12 cm. Jayden says that the volume of the larger tin is 1.5 times the volume of the smaller tin. Give a reason why Jayden is incorrect, and work out the correct volume scale factor.

5.A pump fills a paddling pool at a rate of 130 litres per hour. Work out the rate in litres per minute, to 2 decimal places.

6.A coach journey of 240 km takes 3 hours. For this fixed distance the average speed needed is inversely proportional to the time taken. Work out the average speed needed to complete the same journey in 2 hours.

7.Water flows into a tank at a constant rate. After 8 minutes the tank holds 200 litres. Write the ratio of time in minutes to volume in litres, in its simplest form.

8.Two taxi firms show their charges on straight-line graphs, with the cost in pounds on the vertical axis and the distance in miles on the horizontal axis. Firm A's line passes through (0, 4) and (5, 14). Firm B's line passes through (0, 6) and (5, 21). Work out which firm charges more per mile.

9.A charity shop and a school share collection-box money in the ratio 5 : 8. The charity shop receives £47.50. Work out how much the school receives.

10.An architect builds a scale model of a staircase before construction. The model is mathematically similar to the real staircase, at a scale of 1 : 10. The model covers a floor area of 0.4 m² on the plan. Work out the floor area the real staircase will cover, giving your answer in m².

11.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.

12.Two mathematically similar hexagonal tiles have areas 18 cm² and 50 cm². Work out the ratio of the side length of the smaller tile to the side length of the larger tile, in simplest form.

13.Write the ratio 8 : 15 in the form 1 : n.

14.A crate exerts a force of 84 N on the floor through a base with an area of 2.4 m². Work out the pressure on the floor, in N/m².

15.A graph shows y plotted against x. The graph is a curve that gets closer to both axes but never touches them, and y decreases as x increases. Write down whether this graph could show direct proportion, inverse proportion, or neither.