Ratio, Proportion & Rates of Change

Ratio and proportion is one of the most heavily weighted areas of the GCSE, and examiners use it to test whether you can apply maths rather than just perform it. It covers sharing in a ratio, direct and inverse proportion, compound measures such as speed, density and pressure, and growth and decay problems including compound interest in context.

These questions are usually wordy and multi-step, so the skill being marked is translating a sentence into a calculation. Scale diagrams, maps and best-buy problems are dependable Foundation marks. Inverse proportion, iterative growth and decay, and proportion involving squares and roots are the Higher-tier stretch. Because ratio leans directly on fractions and percentages from the number unit, make sure those are solid first, then work through these topics in order.