Ratio, proportion and rates of change worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.A delivery driver travels 45 km in the first 30 minutes of a journey, and then a further 75 km in the next 1 hour. Work out her average speed for the whole journey, in km/h.

2.y is inversely proportional to x², and x is positive. When x = 2, y = 45. Construct the equation connecting x and y, then work out the value of x when y = 5.

3.A car is bought for £9000. Its value decreases by 8% each year. Work out its value after 2 years.

4.A room is drawn on a plan with a scale of 1 : 200. On the plan the room has an area of 12 cm². Work out the real area of the room, in square metres.

5.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.

6.Ffion is paid £11.20 per hour. She works 6 hours on Monday and 4.5 hours on Tuesday. Work out her total pay for the two days.

7.The price of a cycling helmet rises from £80 to £116. Work out the percentage increase.

8.Two broadband providers show their monthly cost on straight-line graphs, with the cost in pounds on the vertical axis and the data used in gigabytes on the horizontal axis. Provider X's line passes through (0, 15) and (100, 35). Provider Y's line passes through (0, 5) and (100, 45). Work out which provider is cheaper for a customer who uses 40 gigabytes in a month.

9.Triangle ABC is mathematically similar to triangle PQR, with AB corresponding to PQ and BC corresponding to QR. AB = 6 cm, BC = 8 cm and PQ = 12 cm. Work out the length of QR.

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.A pump fills a paddling pool at a rate of 130 litres per hour. Work out the rate in litres per minute, to 2 decimal places.

12.The number of tickets a group can afford is inversely proportional to the price per ticket. At £4 per ticket, the group can afford 12 tickets. Work out how many tickets the group can afford at £6 per ticket.

13.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.

14.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.

15.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?