Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.The ratio of cats to dogs in a shelter is 3:4. There are 18 cats. Work out the total number of animals in the shelter.

2.A trust fund contains £8000. Each year, 5% interest is added, and then £600 is paid out to a charity. Work out the amount remaining in the fund after 2 years.

3.y is directly proportional to x. When x = 7, the value of y is 21. Work out the value of x when y = 12.

4.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.

5.x × y is used to test whether two quantities are in inverse proportion. For the pairs x = 4, y = 15 and x = 6, y = 10, which statement is correct?

6.A tank is filled at a rate of 3 litres every 2 minutes. Given that 1 litre = 1000 cm³, work out the flow rate in cm³ per minute.

7.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.

8.A recipe for pastry uses flour and butter in the ratio 3:2. A baker has 180 g of butter and wants to make pastry using all of it. Work out the total mass of pastry the baker can make.

9.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?

10.Write the ratio 2 : 1/4 as a ratio of whole numbers in its simplest form.

11.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.

12.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.

13.3 builders put up a fence in 12 days. All the builders work at the same rate, so the number of days is inversely proportional to the number of builders. Work out how long 9 builders take to put up the same fence.

14.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.

15.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.