Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.Priya is paid £58.50 for working 7.5 hours on a Saturday. Work out her rate of pay, in £ per hour.

2.A spring's extension is directly proportional to the force applied to it. A force of 5 N produces an extension of 12 mm. Work out the extension produced by a force of 20 N.

3.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?

4.A laptop bag has a mass of 2.4 kg. A school bag has a mass of 3.6 kg. Write the mass of the laptop bag as a fraction of the mass of the school bag, giving your answer in its simplest form.

5.Two hikers' journeys are shown on separate distance-time graphs. Hiker A's graph has gradient 4.5 km/h. Hiker B's graph has gradient 3.2 km/h. Work out how much faster Hiker A walks than Hiker B, in km/h.

6.A conversion graph between kilometres and miles passes through the origin and the point (50, 31), with the number of kilometres on the horizontal axis and the number of miles on the vertical axis. Work out the number of miles equivalent to 1 kilometre.

7.A tangent to a curve at the point where x = 3 passes through the points (1, 4) and (5, 20). Work out the gradient of the tangent at x = 3, and hence the instantaneous rate of change of y with respect to x at that point.

8.A toy manufacturer makes a model aircraft that is mathematically similar to the real aircraft, at a scale of 1 : 48. The wingspan of the model is 15 cm. Work out the wingspan of the real aircraft, giving your answer in metres.

9.A candidate wants to estimate the instantaneous rate of change of a reservoir's water level, in metres, at t = 5 days after heavy rain began. The reservoir's water level is plotted against time, in days, since the rain began. The candidate uses the chord joining the points at t = 0 days and t = 20 days to estimate the rate of change at t = 5 days. Give a reason why this is likely to be a poor estimate.

10.Two mathematically similar jugs have heights 8 cm and 12 cm. The smaller jug holds 200 ml when it is full. Work out how much the larger jug holds when it is full.

11.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.

12.Water flows into a tank at a constant rate. After 8 minutes the tank holds 200 litres. Write the ratio of time in minutes to volume in litres, in its simplest form.

13.Noah runs 2 km in 10 minutes. Work out how long he takes to run 5 km at the same speed.

14.Two quantities x and y are inversely proportional. When x = 2, the value of y is 15. Work out the value of y when x = 5.

15.y is inversely proportional to x. When x = 5, y = 8. Work out the value of y when x = 10.