All SAT II Math I Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #4 : Direct Proportionality
The amount of money you earn is directly proportional to the nunber of hours you worked. On the first day, you earned $32 by working 4 hours. On the second day, how many hours do you need to work to earn $48.
The general formula for direct proportionality is
where is how much money you earned, is the proportionality constant, and is the number of hours worked.
Before we can figure out how many hours you need to work to earn $48, we need to find the value of . It is given that you earned $32 by working 4 hours. Plug these values into the formula
Solve for by dividing both sides by 4.
So . We can use this to find out the hours you need to work to earn $48. With , we have
Plug in $48.
Divide both sides by 8
So you will need to work 6 hours to earn $48.
Example Question #11 : Direct Proportionality
The quantity x varies directly with y. If x is 26 when y is 100, find x when y is 200.
13
52
104
26
6.5
52
We must set up a proportion. Since x varies directly with y, when y is multiplied by 2, x is also multiplied by 2. 26 times 2 is 52.
Direct variation:
Example Question #11 : Proportionalities
The number of pizzas is directly proportional to the number of people attending the party. If pizzas are needed for people, how many pizzas are needed for people?
Let be the number of pizzas and be the number of people attending. Because is directly proportional to , we have
and from the problem
.
Therefore, solving for we get:
Now solving for ,
Thus, for 18 people 9 pizzas are needed.
Example Question #12 : Other Mathematical Relationships
Resistance in a wire to the flow of electricity is calculated by where is the length of the wire, is the cross sectional area, and is the predefined resistivity of the material the wire is made of. Which variable (s) is/are directly proportional to the resistance of the wire?
Direct proportionality results when two quantities increase or decrease at the same time. In the formula for resistance, , as increases so too does . The same is true for . It helps to think of these variables in terms of numbers. When the numerator of this formula is increased and the denominator remains the same, the overall quotient would be larger. The opposite is true if the numerator is decreased and the denominator remains the same (quotient would be smaller).
Example Question #12 : Direct Proportionality
Write the following equation:
k and x are directly proportionate to y.
Direct proportionality means that as one increases so does the other. The equation that is indicative of this statement is the following:
Example Question #13 : Basic Single Variable Algebra
The amount of money earned in a week while working in a snow shoveling business is directly proportional to the number of driveways that the workers shovel. If the business earned $3000 in a week while shoveling 600 driveways how much did they earn for shoveling each driveway?
Direct proportionality means you should use the equation
The question says that the amount of money earned by the business is directly proportional to the number of driveways shoveled so that means y must be the amount of money earned ($3000) and x must be the amount of driveways shoveled (600). Plugging these values into the equation you should get
Solve for k by doing the opposite of what is being done to k on both sides of the equation. Since k is being multiplied by 600 divide both sides by 600
Each driveway earned the snow shoveling business $5
Example Question #14 : Basic Single Variable Algebra
The force from gravity () is directly proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance () you are from an object. Which formula shows that?
Breaking down the question one small piece at a time:
"The force from gravity () is directly proportional" means that the gravity term is going to be on one side of the proportional symbol, and everything else is going to be on the other side.
"to the inverse...of the distance" means that the distance will be in the denominator. As distance gets larger, force will get smaller.
"of the square of the distance" means that the distance will be squared.
Putting it all together gives:
Example Question #1 : How To Find Inverse Variation
varies directly with , and inversely with the square root of .
If and , then .
Find if and .
The variation equation can be written as below. Direct variation will put in the numerator, while inverse variation will put in the denominator. is the constant that defines the variation.
To find constant of variation, , substitute the values from the first scenario given in the question.
We can plug this value into our variation equation.
Now we can solve for given the values in the second scenario of the question.
Example Question #21 : Basic Single Variable Algebra
varies inversely as the square root of . If , then . Find if (nearest tenth, if applicable).
The variation equation is for some constant of variation .
Substitute the numbers from the first scenario to find :
The equation is now .
If , then
Example Question #3 : Indirect Proportionality
varies inversely with three times the square root of . If , then
Find if . Round to the nearest tenth if applicable.
In order to find the value of when , first determine the variation equation based on the information provided:
, for some constant of variation .
Insert the and values from the first variance to find the value of :
Now that we know , the variation equation becomes:
or
.
Therefore, when :
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