Percentage Change Question Generator

Builds a sheet of percentage increase and decrease questions where the answer always comes out as a whole percentage. Every question is computed and checked directly — not a fabricated or AI-guessed fact.

How many questions

Between 1 and 30. Ten fills a page.

Level

Seed (optional)

A word reproduces the same sheet, so a whole class can be given the identical set.

Gentle uses round percentages of small starting values. Stretch includes rises above 100%.

Paper size

Print size

Margin

Millimetres of blank edge, 5 to 40.

Turn the paper sideways

Room to answer in

How to print this, or save it as a PDF

There is no PDF to download, and there does not need to be. Open the print command in your browser and choose “Save as PDF” as the destination. The page addresses and dates a browser normally prints across the top and bottom are already kept off.
Set the scale to 100%, not “fit to page”. This sheet is already the exact size of the paper you chose, so anything that resizes it makes every measurement on it wrong.
Leave the paper size in the dialog set to the same one you chose here.

Your questions will appear here.

What this generator does

Both directions appear on the same sheet, because the thing people get wrong is not the arithmetic but the direction — a 20% rise followed by a 20% fall does not return you to where you started, and meeting both repeatedly is what teaches it. Every question is built backwards from a whole percentage, so the answer is never a figure that has to be rounded before it can be marked.

How to use this tool

Choose how many questions you want and how awkward the percentages should be.
Press make questions, and work through the sheet.
Show the answers to mark it, or show the working to see which value the change is compared against.
Enter a seed word to rebuild the same sheet later.

Understanding the controls

How many questions: One to thirty. Twelve is usually enough to expose whether someone is comparing the change against the starting value or the finishing one.
Level: Gentle uses 10%, 20%, 25% and 50% of small starting values. Standard widens the set; stretch includes rises above 100%, where the finishing value is more than double the start.
Seed: A word rebuilds the identical sheet, so the same questions can be set to two groups without a file changing hands.
Show the answers / show the working: The working states the change, then divides it by the starting value — the step where the wrong denominator gets used.

Common use cases

Percentage-change practice at home or school
Quick maths warm-ups
Work on why a rise and a fall of the same percentage do not cancel
Self-testing before a maths quiz

How this generator works

The percentage is chosen first and the starting value is drawn as a multiple that makes the change a whole number, so the finishing value is exact. A decrease that would land on or below zero is turned into an increase rather than redrawn. The check multiplies out rather than dividing: the change times a hundred must equal the starting value times the stated percentage, so nothing in the verification is ever rounded.

Randomness and fairness

The direction and the percentage are drawn independently, so a sheet will not have an even split of rises and falls unless chance provides one. The starting value is constrained to a multiple that keeps the change whole — that is a constraint on the draw, not a filter afterwards.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

Percentages are always whole numbers, which keeps the answers markable but is not what a real dataset gives you.
Decreases never take a value below zero, so questions about a debt growing more negative are not produced.
A seed guarantees the same questions come back, so the seeded path is reproducible and explicitly not cryptographic.

Common mistakes

Treating a rise and a fall of the same percentage as cancelling out: They do not. £100 up 20% is £120, and £120 down 20% is £96. The percentage applies to a different starting figure each time.
Confusing percentage change with percentage points: A rate going from 5% to 7% is a rise of two percentage points and a 40% increase. Both are correct and they mean different things.

Privacy and your data

The sheet is built in your browser. Your seed and the questions never leave the device, are never uploaded and are not stored between visits.