Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

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.Two mathematically similar logos are printed on a poster. They have areas 20 cm² and 45 cm². Nadia says that the length scale factor from the smaller logo to the larger logo is 45 ÷ 20 = 2.25. Give a reason why Nadia is incorrect, and work out the correct length scale factor.

3.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.

4.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.

5.A car is bought for £12000. Its value falls by 15% in the first year and by 10% in each year after that. Work out the value of the car 3 years after it was bought.

6.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.

7.A tangent to the graph of population against time at the point where t = 4 passes through (2, 180) and (6, 260). Work out the instantaneous rate of change of the population at t = 4, in people per year.

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 mathematically similar picture frames have perimeters 30 cm and 45 cm. The area of the smaller frame is 40 cm². Work out the area of the larger frame.

10.A garden centre has 90 rose bushes in stock. It receives a delivery that increases its stock of rose bushes by 20%. In the same week it sells 150 lavender bushes. Work out the new number of rose bushes, then write it as a fraction of the number of lavender bushes sold, giving your answer in its simplest form.

11.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.

12.The value of a delivery van, in £, is plotted against its age, in years, since it was bought. At age 2 years, the gradient of the tangent to the graph is −950. What does this tell you about the van at age 2 years?

13.An online shop's total number of orders received is recorded at the end of each day for five consecutive days: Day 1, 1,284 orders; Day 2, 1,509 orders; Day 3, 1,830 orders; Day 4, 2,296 orders; Day 5, 2,510 orders. Work out between which two consecutive days the average rate of increase in orders was greatest.

14.y is directly proportional to x. When x = 5, y = 18. Work out the value of y when x = 15.

15.A recipe uses flour, sugar and butter in the ratio 8 : 3 : 5. Write the ratio of flour to the rest of the mixture (sugar and butter combined) in its simplest form.