PSAT Math Multiple-Choice Practice Test 32: Data Analysis: Ratios, Proportions, and Percents

1. Seven out of every 250 students at a certain university who take a test are expected to score at least 90 percent. If the university gives this test to 12,000 students, how many would be expected to score at least 90 percent?

2. A homeowner wants to buy 81 square feet of grass for his yard, but the vendor he uses sells grass only by the square yard. How many square yards of grass does the homeowner need? (1 yard = 3 feet)

3. Ethanol can be mixed with gasoline to reduce automobile emissions. Much automotive gasoline is 15 percent ethanol by volume. An oil company tries decreasing the ethanol content to 6 percent to lower the cost. If a car with a 14-gallon tank is filled with the 15 percent blend and a second car with a 10-gallon tank is filled with the 6 percent blend, how many times more ethanol is in the first car than in the second car?

4. Kelania owns a bakery, and she adjusts the number of pounds of flour she orders each week based on the number she used the previous week. After the first week of the month, she decreased the number of pounds of flour she ordered by 25 percent, then increased the number by 10 percent the following week, then increased the number by an additional 50 percent in the last week of the month. What is the approximate total percent increase in the number of pounds of flour Kelania ordered from the start of the month until the end of the month?

5. The cost of tuition at a private nonprofit four-year college in 1988 was approximately $15,800. In 2013, the cost of tuition at the same type of college was approximately $30,100. If tuition experiences the same total percent increase over the next 25 years, approximately how much will tuition at a private nonprofit four-year college cost?

6. For every 4,000 snowblowers produced by a snowblower factory, exactly 8 are defective. At this rate, how many snowblowers were produced during a period in which exactly 18 snowblowers were defective?

7. An engineer is monitoring construction of a 75-foot-long escalator. The difference in height between the two floors being connected was originally supposed to be 40 feet, but due to a calculation error, this figure must be reduced by 25 percent. The angle between the escalator and the floor must not change in order to comply with the building code. What is the change in length in feet between the original escalator measurement and its corrected value?

8. The number of cars that can safely pass through a stoplight is directly proportional to the length of time in seconds that the light is green. If 9 cars can safely pass through a light that stays green for 36 seconds, how many cars can safely pass through a light that stays green for 24 seconds?

9. If the total weight of 31 identical medieval coins is approximately 16 ounces, which of the following is closest to the weight, in ounces, of 97 of these coins?

10. Jack is taking a road trip. If he travels 180 miles while his car uses gasoline at a rate of 40 miles per gallon and then travels another 105 miles while his car uses gasoline at a rate of 35 miles per gallon, how many gallons of fuel has his car consumed?

11. The average college student reads at a rate of about 5 words per second. If the pages of Jorge's textbook contain an average of 500 words per page, how long will it take him to read a 45-page chapter?

12. Each MRI scan given at a hospital produces about 3.6 gigabits of data. Every night, for 8 hours, the hospital backs up the files of the scans. The hospital computers can upload the MRI scans at a rate of 2 megabits per second. What is the maximum number of MRI scans that the hospital can upload each night? (1 gigabit = 1,024 megabits)

13. A company sells dolls for $20 each. It decides to offer a discount of 20 percent for a month to see how many new customers it can attract. How much will each doll sell for during the month of the discount?

14. A high school's Environment Club receives a certain amount of money from the school to host an all-day event. The club budgets 40 percent of the money for a guest speaker, 25 percent for educational materials, 20 percent to rent a hotel conference room, and the remainder for lunch. If the club plans to spend $225 on lunch for the participants, how much does it plan to spend on the guest speaker?