Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.A machine fills bottles at a constant rate. It fills 18 bottles in 3 minutes. Working at the same rate, work out how many bottles the machine fills in 8 minutes.

2.The density of a type of solid plastic is 0.9 g/cm³. Work out the mass of 0.5 m³ of the plastic, in kilograms.

3.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.

4.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.

5.Maya buys a vintage car for £15000. Its value is expected to increase by 4% each year for 2 years. She then plans to sell the car and use £2000 of the money from the sale to buy a trailer. Work out how much money she will have left after selling the car and buying the trailer.

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

7.In a fruit bowl, the ratio of apples to oranges is 5 : 3. Work out what percentage of the fruit in the bowl is apples.

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.Two mathematically similar triangular flags have areas in the ratio 4 : 25. The height of the smaller flag is 6 cm. Work out the height of the larger flag.

10.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.

11.A company had 8000 employees. The number of employees decreased by 5% in the first year, and then increased by 5% in the second year. Work out the number of employees at the end of the second year, to the nearest whole number.

12.A jug of squash is made by mixing water and syrup in the ratio 6:1. Nia wants to make 8.4 litres of squash. Work out how much syrup she needs, in litres.

13.A shop's takings were £4500 in May. In June the takings fell by £900. Write the June takings as a fraction of the May takings, in its simplest form.

14.A map has a scale of 1 : 40 000. A cycle path measures 7.5 cm on the map. Work out the real length of the cycle path, in kilometres.

15.The height of a candle, in cm, is measured as it burns: t = 0 min, height = 20.0; t = 3 min, height = 18.7; t = 5 min, height = 17.5; t = 6 min, height = 16.6; t = 7 min, height = 15.4; t = 9 min, height = 13.4. Which pair of readings gives the best estimate of the instantaneous rate of change of the height at t = 6 minutes, and why?