Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.Which of these ratios is equivalent to 6 : 10 : 14?

2.A train travels at a constant speed of 90 km/h. Work out the speed in m/s.

3.Two cars leave the same point at the same time and travel in opposite directions. One travels at 80 km/h and the other at 60 km/h. Work out how long it takes until the cars are 350 km apart.

4.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?

5.Write the ratio 2/3 : 1/2 as a ratio of whole numbers, in its simplest form.

6.A water tank is a cuboid measuring 30 cm × 20 cm × 10 cm. The tank is full of water. Work out how many litres of water it holds.

7.A charity shop and a school share collection-box money in the ratio 5 : 8. The charity shop receives £47.50. Work out how much the school receives.

8.The total cost, in pounds, of manufacturing a batch of components is plotted against the number of components produced. A tangent to this graph at a particular point has gradient 3.60. What does the value 3.60 represent?

9.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.

10.The density of a liquid is 0.92 g/cm³. Work out the density of the liquid in kg/m³.

11.The concentration of a pollutant in a lake, in arbitrary units, follows the recurrence C_{n+1} = 0.75C_n + 40, with C_0 = 500: each week, 25% of the pollutant breaks down naturally, and then a further 40 units enter the lake from run-off. An ecologist classifies the lake as safe once C_n first drops below 300. Find the first whole number of weeks after which the lake is safe.

12.The depth of water in a tank, in cm, is recorded every 10 seconds: at t = 10, depth = 32; at t = 20, depth = 45; at t = 30, depth = 56. Use the most appropriate chord from these readings to estimate the instantaneous rate of change of depth at t = 20.

13.A kettle uses 2.1 kWh of energy. A toaster uses 0.9 kWh of energy. Write the energy used by the kettle as a fraction of the energy used by the toaster, giving your answer in its simplest form.

14.Leah puts £4000 into a savings account paying 3% compound interest each year. At the end of 2 years she takes out all of the money and spends £1500 of it on a laptop. Work out how much of the money she has left.

15.A population of penguins on an island is 2400. The population is predicted to grow by 7% each year. Work out the predicted population after 2 years, to the nearest whole number.