Drawing Graphs from Ratios - quick tip

You can treat Ratios like coordinates on a graph.

If you have a ratio in its simplified form, like 1 : 4

And then if you scale it up by multiplying - we learnt this is in my previous post on gcse maths ratios.

You can create a set of ratios like this:

1 : 4

2 : 8

3 : 12

4 : 16

which are coordinates like this:

(1 , 4) (2 , 8) (3 , 12) (4 , 16)

Which means you can plot a graph like this:

(If you’re feeling a bit savvy, you’ll notice this is also the graph of y = 4x)

PS Desmos.com is a great tool for drawing graphs, highly recommend you check it out.

Tip: If you don’t have a simplified ratio, something like 5 : 9

Here’s a faster way to draw the graph:

Plot the point (5 , 9)

Then draw a straight line through (0 , 0) and (5 , 9)

Boom. You can now use that line to read off any other ratios :)