Speed Drills: Percentages and Proportion
Speed Drills: Percentages and Proportion is a short, timed practice set of quick-fire percentage and proportion questions designed to build the instant recall and mental methods that GL Assessment and CEM papers reward, since many papers allow under a minute per question and give little space for long written working.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Before starting the timer, recall the key percentage benchmarks by heart: 10% (divide by 10), 50% (halve), 25% (halve then halve again), 5% (halve the 10% value), 1% (divide by 100).
- For 'find X% of Y' items, build the percentage from 10% and 1% blocks rather than working out an unfamiliar percentage from scratch, for example 35% = (10% x 3) + 5%.
- For direct proportion items, such as scaling a price from one quantity to another, find the scale factor between the two quantities first, then apply it once.
- Answer every question in order and mark any you are unsure of rather than pausing, so time is not lost on a single hard item.
- Keep working to a maximum of one or two lines per question; if a question needs more than that, it is likely to be misread, not genuinely hard.
- In the final minute, return to marked questions and use estimation to eliminate obviously wrong options if the drill uses a multiple-choice format.
Worked example
Timed drill question: find 35% of 240 in your head, working in stages, within 20 seconds.
- Find 10% of 240: 240 / 10 = 24.
- Find 30% by tripling the 10% value: 24 x 3 = 72.
- Find 5% by halving the 10% value: 24 / 2 = 12.
- Add the 30% and 5% parts together: 72 + 12 = 84.
- Final answer: 35% of 240 is 84.
Practice questions
Type your answer and press Check to be marked straight away, or reveal the answer and mark yourself.
Q1Find 10% of 350 in one step.Show answer
Answer: 35
Q2Find 20% of 90.Show answer
Answer: 18 (10% = 9, doubled)
Q3If 4 identical rulers cost 3 pounds 60 in total, how much do 9 rulers cost?Show answer
Answer: 8 pounds 10 (unit price 0.90, 9 x 0.90 = 8.10)
Q4Find 75% of 160.Show answer
Answer: 120 (75% is 3/4, 160 / 4 = 40, 40 x 3 = 120)
Q5A recipe for 5 people uses 250g of rice. How much rice is needed for 15 people?Show answer
Answer: 750g (scale factor 3, 250 x 3 = 750)
Q6Find 5% of 480.Show answer
Answer: 24 (10% = 48, halved is 24)
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a 11+ exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
A jacket costs 64 pounds. In a sale it is reduced by 15%. Find the sale price, showing the mental method rather than long multiplication.
Show mark scheme
Tick each line you got. Your score builds from the marks on the scheme.
Nothing ticked yet - 3 available
If 8 identical stickers cost 2 pounds, use proportion, not a written column method, to find the cost of 20 stickers, and explain the mental steps you used.
Show mark scheme
Tick each line you got. Your score builds from the marks on the scheme.
Nothing ticked yet - 4 available
Free printable worksheet
Want more practice on paper? Download the speed drills: percentages and proportion worksheet pack - 17 pages of exam-style questions with a full mark scheme. One email opens every download in this browser for 14 days - no account, no card. Print it for personal and classroom use.
This topic is chapter 7 of 11+ Maths Workbook 1, the whole course as one free printable PDF.
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