Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.After a 20% discount, a jacket costs £48. Work out the original price of the jacket.

2.A map has a scale of 1 : 25 000. Two towns are 5 km apart in real life. Work out the distance between the towns on the map, in centimetres.

3.A charity collects donations from adults and children in the ratio 5:2. Altogether, £238 is collected. Work out how much more the adults donate than the children.

4.A cyclist rides at a steady speed of 20 mph. Given that 1 mile ≈ 1.6 km, work out the cyclist's speed in km/h.

5.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.

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

7.A shop's daily profit, in pounds, is plotted against the price charged for an item, in pounds. A tangent to the profit graph at a price of £15 passes through the points (12, 540) and (18, 480). Work out the instantaneous rate of change of profit with respect to price at £15, and state whether profit is increasing or decreasing there.

8.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.

9.A force of 126 N acts on an area of 3.5 m². Work out the pressure on the area, in N/m².

10.The number of subscribers to a streaming app, in thousands, is plotted against time, in months since launch. A tangent to the graph at t = 6 months has gradient 4.8. A tangent at t = 18 months has gradient 1.1. A manager claims the app is growing faster at 18 months than it was at 6 months. Work out how the growth rate has changed, and decide whether the manager is correct.

11.Paint costs £14.40 for every 20 m² of wall it covers. Assuming the same rate, work out the cost of the paint needed to cover 56 m² of wall.

12.Given that 1 mile ≈ 1.6 km, work out a speed of 55 mph in km/h.

13.A greenhouse's temperature, in °C, is recorded every hour during the day: 09:00, 15.0; 10:00, 18.4; 11:00, 20.1; 12:00, 19.8; 13:00, 17.2. Work out between which two consecutive readings the instantaneous rate of change of the temperature is most likely to have been zero.

14.A process is modelled by the recurrence P_{n+1} = 0.6P_n + 40. As n increases, P_n approaches a long-run value L, which satisfies L = 0.6L + 40. Solve this equation to find L.

15.A concrete block exerts a force of 45 N on the ground through a base with an area of 0.05 m². Work out the pressure on the ground, in N/m².