Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.Two investors put money into a business in the ratio 3:5. The first investor puts in £1,200. Work out the total amount invested by both investors.

2.A 1.5 kg bag of pasta costs £2.85 and a 2.4 kg bag of the same pasta costs £4.32. Work out which bag gives better value for money.

3.A hiker's distance from the start of the trail, in kilometres, is plotted against time, in minutes, since she set off. At t = 45 minutes she stops to rest, so her distance from the start is neither increasing nor decreasing at that instant. Which statement about the tangent to the distance–time graph at t = 45 minutes is correct?

4.A tap fills a tank at a rate of 15 litres per minute. Given that 1 litre = 1000 cm³, work out the rate at which the tank fills in cm³ per second.

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

6.Two mathematically similar polygons have perimeters in the ratio 2 : 5. Write the ratio of their areas in its simplest form.

7.The time taken for a train journey is inversely proportional to the average speed of the train. At an average speed of 60 km/h the journey takes 2 hours. Work out the time taken at an average speed of 40 km/h.

8.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.

9.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.

10.An ice-cream van's daily takings, in £, are modelled by a curve plotted against the average temperature that day, in °C. At a temperature of 22°C, the gradient of the tangent to this curve is 14. What does this gradient tell you about the takings at 22°C?

11.Two printers' running costs are shown on separate straight-line graphs of total cost against number of pages printed. Printer A's graph has gradient £0.04 per page. Printer B's graph has gradient £0.05 per page. Work out how much cheaper it is to print 200 pages on Printer A than on Printer B, based on these running costs alone.

12.Before a charity campaign, donations were £6400 per month. Donations grew by 8% in the first year after the campaign, and then fell by 3% in the second year as interest faded. Work out the amount donated per month at the end of the second year, to the nearest pound.

13.A laptop costs £800 when new. Its value decreases by 25% of its value at the start of each year. Work out how much value the laptop loses in the second year.

14.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.

15.The density of a type of wood is 0.8 g/cm³. Work out the mass of a piece of this wood with a volume of 150 cm³.