Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.A fixed job of fitting a solar array is shared between installers, and the time taken is inversely proportional to the number of installers working on it at once. With 4 installers the job takes 18 hours. Construct the equation connecting time T and number of installers n, then work out how long it would take with 6 installers.

2.A loan of £3000 has interest added at 2% each month, and then a fixed repayment of £200 is made. This is modelled by the recurrence B_{n+1} = 1.02B_n − 200, where B_n is the balance after n months and B_0 = 3000. Work out the balance after 2 months.

3.A furniture maker builds two mathematically similar bookcases. The smaller bookcase is 40 cm tall and uses 2 m² of wood. The larger bookcase is 60 cm tall. Work out the area of wood needed for the larger bookcase, giving your answer in m².

4.A savings account pays 3.5% compound interest each year. Bilal invests £1200. Work out how much interest, in total, he earns after 2 years, to the nearest penny.

5.A tangent to a distance–time graph, with distance in kilometres and time in minutes, has gradient 0.78 kilometres per minute at a particular point. Work out the instantaneous rate of change of distance with time, in kilometres per hour.

6.A sequence is defined by the iterative rule x_{n+1} = 0.5x_n + 20, with x_0 = 0. By working out x_1, x_2 and x_3, find the value that the sequence is approaching.

7.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.

8.A force of 250 N acts on an area of 0.5 m². Using pressure = force ÷ area, work out the pressure, in pascals.

9.Two cars travel at constant speeds. Car A travels 150 km in 3 hours. Car B travels 180 km in 4 hours. Which car is faster, and what is its speed?

10.A metal alloy is made from copper and tin in the ratio 9:1. Write the mass of tin as a fraction of the mass of copper, in its simplest form.

11.It takes 2 identical pumps 10 hours to empty a flooded basement. Working at the same rate, work out how many hours 5 of these pumps would take to empty the same basement.

12.In a fruit squash mix, the ratio of squash to water is 2 : 9. A shop wants to make up the mix using 3.4 litres of squash. Work out how many litres of water are needed.

13.Triangle ABC is mathematically similar to triangle PQR, with AB corresponding to PQ and BC corresponding to QR. AB = 6 cm, BC = 8 cm and PQ = 12 cm. Work out the length of QR.

14.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.

15.Ffion is paid £11.20 per hour. She works 6 hours on Monday and 4.5 hours on Tuesday. Work out her total pay for the two days.