GED Ratios and Proportions: 25 Practice Questions on Rates, Recipes and Maps

Ratios sound like school math. But you’ve been doing them for years.

Every time you double a recipe, split a bill, or check the little price-per-ounce sticker on a store shelf, you’re using a ratio. It’s just two numbers that move together.

The catch? Most wrong answers here don’t come from bad arithmetic. They come from moving the numbers the wrong way, like adding when you should multiply. That’s what this page helps you fix.

On this page you’ll get:

• 25 practice questions (scroll up), new ones every time
• Unit rates and better-buy questions
• Scaling recipes and reading map scales
• Distance, rate and time (d = rt) in plain English

Skills in this set: Unit rates · Solving a proportion for a missing value · Scaling a recipe up or down · Scale drawings, maps and models · Comparing unit prices to find the better buy · Distance, rate and time with d = rt

What ratio questions look like, from the store to the map

Almost every ratio question gives you one pair of numbers and asks about another pair that follows the same rule. If 4 pounds of coffee cost $34, what do 9 pounds cost?

Here’s how it works: find the amount for one, then multiply. One pound costs $34 ÷ 4 = $8.50, so 9 pounds cost 9 × $8.50 = $76.50. That “amount for one” has a name: the unit rate.

Better-buy questions use the same idea. You’ll see a table with two or three sizes of one product, like the cereal boxes lined up on a shelf. Divide each price by its size, and the lowest price per ounce wins.

Scaling a recipe means multiplying every ingredient by the same number. A recipe for 4 people that you’re making for 12 is three times as big, so 2 cups of rice becomes 6. Some recipe questions in this set use drag and drop.

Map scales work the same way. If 1 inch on the map stands for 20 miles, then 3.5 inches is 3.5 × 20 = 70 real miles. Floor plans do it too, where 1 inch might stand for 4 feet.

Distance, rate and time is on the formula sheet as d = rt. In plain English: how far you go equals how fast you go times how long you keep going. Drive 60 miles an hour for 3 hours and you cover 60 × 3 = 180 miles.

One thing to watch with d = rt: if the speed is in miles per hour, the time has to be in hours too. Thirty minutes is 0.5 hours, so change it before you multiply.

A proportion with friendly numbers, like $36 for 4 tickets, could come up in the first five or so questions, which have no calculator. Better-buy and d = rt problems with decimals come later, when you have the calculator. There, the skill is setting up the division the right way round.

How many questions? There’s no official count per topic. Ratios share about 25% of the test with number operations, fractions, percents and exponents, so our estimate is two to four ratio questions out of about 46.

The topics and area weights come from GED Testing Service’s official test guide. It doesn’t publish a question count per topic, so any count here is our estimate.

The 4 mistakes that cost the most points

Each wrong answer in the practice set is the result of one specific slip, and the explanation names it. These are the ones that come up most in this topic.

One problem, worked out step by step

How to get better at this, fast

1. Solve each proportion two ways until they agree. Find the amount for one and multiply, then check with two equal fractions and cross products.
2. Practice unit prices with a grocery flyer. Pick something sold in two sizes, divide each price by its weight, and say which is cheaper per ounce.
3. For maps and scale drawings, write the scale with its units (1 inch : 20 miles). Drawing to real life, you multiply. Real life to drawing, you divide.
4. With d = rt, label all three amounts first, and change minutes to hours when the speed is in miles per hour. Multiply back to check your answer.