3

Rates, Proportions,
and Percents

Rates, proportions, and percents are concepts that we encounter

all around us: miles per hour, price per pound, percentage discounts, and
commissions. In this chapter you will be tested on some extremely useful
skills that can be applied to your personal and work life. In addition to
being useful in your everyday life, mastery of the following skills that are
tested in this chapter will be critical to your success on the GED test:

n Rates and unit rate

n Setting up and solving proportions

n Working with percentages

n Solving word problems with percentages

47
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

81. Suppose a jet can fly a distance of 5,100 miles in 3 hours. If the jet
travels at the same average speed throughout its flight, how many
hours will it take the jet to travel 22,950 miles?
a. 4.5 hours
b. 13.5 hours
c. 15.3 hours
d. 18 hours

82. Joe made $90 babysitting for 12 hours. At this rate, how long will
it take him to make an additional $300?
a. 25 hours
b. 7.5 hours
c. 40 hours
d. 28 hours

83. Jeremy purchased six cans of tomatoes for $5.34. At this rate, how
much would he pay for 11 cans of tomatoes?
a. $10.68
b. $9.79
c. $9.90
d. $11.00

8
__ x
___
84. Solve for x: 10 = 100 . ______________

85. The scale on a state map is 1 inch:24 miles. How many miles apart
are two cities if they are 3 inches apart on the map?
a. 32 miles
b. 72 miles
c. 80 miles
d. 96 miles

86. A survey of 1,000 registered voters shows that 650 of them will
choose Candidate A in an upcoming election. If 240,000 people
vote in the upcoming election, according to the survey, how
many votes will Candidate A receive? _______________

48
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

87. Samantha went to a local restaurant to celebrate her birthday with a

friend. The charge for the meal was $15. Samantha paid with a $20
bill and tipped the waiter 15% of the cost of the meal. How much
change did she have left?
a. $2.25
b. $2.75
c. $3.50
d. $3.75

88. If Veronica deposits $5,000 in her savings account with a yearly

interest rate of 9% and leaves the money in the account for eight
years, how much interest will her money earn?
a. $360,000
b. $45,000
c. $3,600
d. $450

89. Mr. Jordan is planning to buy a treadmill. The treadmill he wants

is on sale at 10% off the retail price of $700. Mr. Jordan has an
additional coupon for 5% off after the discount has been applied.
What is the final cost of the treadmill, not including any taxes or
assembly fees?
a. $595.00
b. $598.50
c. $630.00
d. $661.50

90. Alexis bought a gardening shed for $339. She loved it so much that
the next summer she went to buy another one, but the price had
gone up to $419. What was the percentage increase in price of her
beloved garden shed, rounded to the nearest whole number?
a. 24%
b. 36%
c. 19%
d. 80%

49
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

91. A website is selling a laptop computer for $375 plus 6.5% state
sales tax. A student wishes to purchase two of these computers: one
for his brother and one for himself. Including tax, what will be the
total cost of his order? Write your answer in the box.
$

92. A town has a population of 20,510 and an area of 86.8 square

miles. To the nearest tenth, what is the population density as
measured by people per square mile?
a. 2.72
b. 236.3
c. 2,201.4
d. 55,833.1

93. Two friends go to a restaurant for lunch and receive a final bill of
$24.36. One friend believes they should tip 15%, while the other
believes they should tip 20%. To the nearest cent, what is the
difference between the two possible tips?
a. $1.22
b. $3.65
c. $4.87
d. $8.52

94. A map is drawn such that 2.5 inches on the map represents a true
distance of 10 miles. If two cities are 7.1 inches apart on the map,
then to the nearest tenth of a mile, what is the true distance
between the two cities?
a. 14.6
b. 17.8
c. 28.4
d. 71.0

95. Over the last 6 months, a company’s monthly revenue has in-
creased by 28%. If the revenue this month is $246,990, then what
was the revenue 6 months ago? Round your answer to the nearest
cent. Write your answer in the box.
$

50
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

96. A remote-controlled vehicle travels at a constant speed around

a testing track for a period of 12 hours. In those 12 hours, the vehi-
cle covers 156 kilometers. In terms of kilometers per hour, at what
rate was the vehicle traveling? Write your answer in the box.
km/hr.

97. An IT consultant charges a company $75 an hour to analyze its

current systems. Additionally, he charges a 3% project fee and a
1% telecommunications fee on the cost of the billed hours. If a
project requires 20 hours for the consultant to complete, what
will be the final amount charged to the company?
a. $1,515
b. $1,545
c. $1,560
d. $2,100

98. The ratio of full-time employees to part-time employees in a mid-

size law firm is 4:3. If there is a total of 20 full-time employees,
how many part-time employees work at the firm?
a. 15
b. 19
c. 23
d. 27

99. A company pays its sales employees a base rate of $450 a week plus
a 4% commission on any sales the employee makes. If an employee
makes $1,020 in sales one week, what will be his total paycheck for
that week? Write your answer in the box.

100. A 32-ounce bag of potato chips has a retail cost of $3.45. To the
nearest 10th of a cent, what is the price per ounce of this item
(in cents)?
a. 9.3
b. 10.8
c. 28.5
d. 35.45

51
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

101. A walking trail is 11,088 feet long. If a mile is 5,280 feet, how
many miles long is the walking trail?
a. 0.2
b. 0.5
c. 1.6
d. 2.1

102. The following table indicates the behavior of the price of one share
of a given stock over several weeks.

END OF CHANGE
Week 1 Increased by $5.00
Week 2 Decreased by 10%
Week 3 Decreased by $1.10
Week 4 Doubled in value

If the stock was worth $10.15 a share at the beginning of week 1,

what was the value of one share of this stock at the end of week 4?
a. $25.07
b. $29.46
c. $32.20
d. $50.14

103. A customer uses two coupons to purchase a product at a grocery

store, where the original price of the product was $8.30. If the final
price paid by the customer was $7.00 and each coupon gave the
same discount, what was the value of the discount provided by a
single coupon?
a. $0.65
b. $0.90
c. $1.30
d. $2.60

104. Lee is planning to buy a new television and has been watching the
price of a particular model for the past month. Last month, the
price was $309.99, while this month, the price is $334.99. To the
nearest tenth of a percent, by what percent has the price increased
over the past month? Write your answer in the box.

52
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

105. Ava bought 2.5 pounds of organic green grapes at the farmers’
market for $9. Liam bought 3.2 pounds of organic red grapes
at the store for $12. To the nearest penny, how much more per
pound were the grapes that Liam bought at the store?
a. $3.00
b. $3.68
c. $0.15
d. $0.25

106. Nine out of ten professional athletes suffer at least one injury each
season. If there are 120 players in a professional league, estimate
how many of them played the entire last season without an injury.
a. 12
b. 13
c. 100
d. 108

107. Calculate: 320 is 40% of what number?

a. 128
b 360
c. 780
d. 800

108. Lucas is buying a drill that costs $120, but on July 4th it is on a one-
day sale for 30% off. If the sales tax is 7.5%, what will the total
price be after calculating the 30% discount and tax? _______

109. If K.P. can read 1,000 words in 5 minutes, how many words can he
read in 12 minutes? _______

110. The ratio of men to women at a certain meeting is 3 to 5. If there

are 18 men at the meeting, how many people are at the meeting?
a. 11
b 29
c. 30
d. 48

53
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

111. A drawing of a bookcase to be built has a scale of 1 inch:1 foot.

The height of the bookcase in the drawing is 2.5 inches. What is
the actual height in inches of the bookcase?
a. 12 inches
b 18 inches
c. 24 inches
d. 30 inches

112. Suzette just moved to a new city. She does not have a car, so she
has to walk or take the bus everywhere. She bought a map of the
city so she can find her way around. She located a grocery store on
the map, and it doesn’t appear to be too far from her apartment.
From the scale drawing, determine how many miles away the gro-
cery store is from Suzette’s apartment. Note: 1 mile = 5,280 feet.

Scale:
165 ft.
Bank
Library

Main Street Apt. Building

Park

Suzette’s Apt. Oak Street Grocery Store

a. 0.2 miles
b 0.3 miles
c. 6.4 miles
d. 825 miles

54
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

113. A furniture store manager decides to mark up the price of a living

room set by q% in anticipation of increased interest during the
holiday gift-buying season. If the new price is $z before tax, what
was the price of the set before the markup?
100
______
a. 100 + q z
100 +q
______
b. 100 z
c. z + q
100
___
d. q z

114. Ralph can hike 1.3 miles in 45 minutes. Which equation could be
used to find d, the distance in miles that Ralph can hike in 3 hours?
d
__ 0.75
____
a. 3 = 1.3
1.3
____ d
__
b. 0.75 = 3
0.75
____ 3
___
c. d = 1.3
0.75
____ d
___
d. 3 = 1.3

115. The following graph shows students’ favorite sports. What per-
centage said that golf was their favorite?

15%
Swimming
10%
Football 20%
Baseball

Golf 25%
Basketball

a. 25%
b. 30%
c. 45%
d. 15%

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501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

116. A certain model of calculator is known to have approximately 8

malfunctioning calculators out of every 2,000. If an office supply
company in Los Angeles is going to order 750 of these calculators
to stock its stores for back-to-school shopping in August,
approximately how many returns due to defects should the
company anticipate having later in the fall? _________

117. It takes Michael 3 minutes to read two pages in his book. At this
rate, how long will it take him to read a 268-page book?
a. 6 hours and 42 minutes
b 13 hours and 24 minutes
c. 8 hours and 56 minutes
d. 5 hours and 2 minutes

118. A drawing of a tree uses the scale 1 in. = 25 ft. If the drawing is
1.5 inches tall, how tall is the tree shown in the drawing?

1.5 in.

a. 26 ft.
b 37.5 ft.
c. 50 ft.
d. 62.5 ft.

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501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

119. Ron is a car salesman. If he meets his daily sales goal, he gets 5%
commission on the amount of money he was over his goal. If Ron
sold a Jeep Cherokee and a Ford Escape, how much commission
did he get if his daily sales goal was $42,300?

CAR PRICE
Ford Escape $22,700
Honda SUV $22,795
Kia Sorento $24,100
Jeep Cherokee $22,995
Chevrolet Equinox $23,755
Dodge Journey $19,485
a. $1.69
b $16.97
c. $169.75
d. $16,975

120. The Robb family wants to have the carpeting in their vacation
home steam cleaned. They received a special offer in the mail
advertising $3 for every 10 square feet of carpeting cleaned. If they
don’t want to spend more than $250, how many square feet of
carpeting can they have cleaned with this offer? _________

121. The following drawing represents a deck that the Joneses are
building. In the drawing, one-half of an inch represents 3 feet.
What are the actual dimensions of the deck?

2 in.

3 in.

a. 3 feet by 4.5 feet

b 6 feet by 9 feet
c. 7 feet by 10.5 feet
d. 12 feet by 18 feet

57
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

122. Arnita has been working for three years at the same company, and
has been earning $11.75 per hour. She recently received a raise
of $13 per hour. By what percentage has her earnings increased
per hour?
a. 0.096%
b 0.106%
c. 9.6%
d. 10.6%

3
123. If 3__
4 cups of flour are needed to bake a batch of 36 cookies, how
much flour is needed to make 90 cookies?
5
a. 5__
8 cups
3
b. 9__
8 cups
1
c. 8__
2 cups
1
d. 7__
2 cups

124. A salad bar owner charges a base price of $5.75 for a basic salad
with three toppings and $0.80 for each additional topping. A 6%
tax is then applied to that price to get the total cost. Which of the
following functions could be used to compute the cost of a salad
based on the number of additional toppings x?
a. f(x) = (5.75 + 0.80x) + 6(5.75 + 0.80x)
b. f(x) = 5.75 + 0.80x
c. f(x) = 5.75 + 0.80x + 0.06
d. f(x) = (5.75 + 0.80x) + 0.06(5.75 + 0.80x)

125. An electronics retailer reduced the price of last year’s laptops by

p%. If the sale price, before tax, is x dollars, what was the original
price (in dollars) of the laptop?
100
______
a. 100 + p x
100 –p
______
b. 100
x
__
c. p
100x
______
d. 100 – p

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501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

126. Sandy’s Treasures sells used books in bundles at a great discount.

According to the table, how much would it cost to buy nine used
books? ________________

BUNDLES OF BOOKS PRICE

3 $15
6 $30
9 x
12 $60
15 $75

127. If Sam jogs at a rate of 6 miles per hour, approximately how many
minutes would it take him to jog 5,000 feet?
a. 833
b. 1,704.6
c. 28.4
d. 9.5

128. A dinner bill comes to $75.50 before applying the 6% tax. You
have a coupon for 15% off the bill before tax and intend to tip
20% on the taxed amount after the coupon is applied. What is
the total amount you will pay?
a. $81.64
b. $77.02
c. $64.18
d. $68.03

129. The number of cell phones in the United States in 2014 was
327,577,529. If 46% of these cell phones were owned by males,
how many cell phones were owned by males? Round your
answer to the nearest hundred thousand.
a. 150,000,000
b. 150,690,000
c. 150,680,000
d. 150,700,000

59
501 Questions to Master the GED® Mathematical Reasoning Test

130. If the mass of five identical containers of soup is 3.2 kilograms,

what would be the mass of eight such identical containers
of soup?
a. 12.5 kilograms
b. 5.12 grams
c. 6.4 kilograms
d. 5,120 grams

60