SEAG percentages and ratio practice
Percentages and ratios come up constantly in the Northern Ireland transfer test, often dressed up as money, sale-price or sharing problems rather than a bare "find 20% of..." question. Learning to spot a percentage or ratio problem inside a word problem is half the skill. Below are three real-style questions with full worked answers.
Try three percentages and ratio questions
A 60 pound jacket has 10% off in a sale. What is the sale price?
A. 50 pounds B. 54 pounds C. 56 pounds D. 66 pounds
Answer: 54 pounds. 10% of 60 is 6, and 60 take away 6 leaves 54 pounds. Finding 10% first and then adjusting is the quickest route into most percentage discount questions.
If 100% of a number is 47, what is 50% of it?
A. 24 B. 47 C. 11.75 D. 23.5
Answer: 23.5. 50% is simply half, and half of 47 is 23.5. Questions phrased this way are testing whether a child understands what percentage actually means, not just a calculation method.
A ribbon is 84 cm long. It is cut into 7 equal pieces. How long is each piece?
A. 10 cm B. 12 cm C. 14 cm D. 17 cm
Answer: 12 cm. 84 divided by 7 equals 12. Sharing problems like this are a simple form of ratio, and children often lose marks here purely from a division slip rather than a lack of understanding, which is exactly why timed repetition helps.
What tends to catch children out
The most common issues are confusing percentage increase with percentage decrease, forgetting to add back the original amount after finding a percentage change, and rushing ratio-sharing questions without checking the parts actually add up to the whole. All three are easy to fix once a child has seen the pattern a few times.
Practise this topic, then sit a full mock
Transfera has original percentages and ratio questions across easy, medium and hard difficulty, each with a clear written explanation. Once your child is confident here, a full timed mock brings this topic together with the rest of the Maths paper.
Start practising percentages and ratios free
Keep exploring
Transfer test Maths practice · Fractions and decimals · All transfer test practice