Sample paper · GCSE Foundation · grades 1–5
GCSE Foundation sample Paper 2 (calculator)
The real Paper 2 is 1.5 hour 30 minutes and 80 marks, calculator, and all three papers carry equal weight. This sample is 20 original questions in the same content proportions as the Foundation qualification — number 25%, algebra 20%, ratio, proportion and rates of change 25%, geometry and measures 15%, probability 7.5%, statistics 7.5% — with a calculator allowed. AO1 / AO2 / AO3 at this tier: 50% / 25% / 25%.
CalculatorGCSE Foundation
GCSE Foundation sample Paper 2 (calculator)
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- 1.Work out 2 × (−3 + 7)
- 2.The graph of y = x² − 2x − 8 takes these values: when x = −2, y = 0; when x = −1, y = −5; when x = 0, y = −8; when x = 3, y = −5; when x = 4, y = 0. Use these values to write down the two solutions of x² − 2x − 8 = 0.y = x² − 2x − 8
- 3.For the pairs x = 6, y = 15 and x = 10, y = 25, which statement is correct?
- 4.A bead starts at position (2, −1) on a grid, in centimetres. It is moved by the column vector u, with top number 3 and bottom number 5, and then moved by the column vector v, with top number −7 and bottom number 2. Work out the coordinates of the bead's final position.
- 5.A bag contains 2 white counters and 8 black counters. One counter is taken at random from the bag. Work out the probability that the counter is not black.
- 6.The lowest temperature in a garden in Sheffield was recorded on each of seven days: 3 °C, 5 °C, 2 °C, 7 °C, 4 °C, 6 °C and 3 °C. Write down what the range of these seven temperatures describes.
- 7.A cinema has 21 rows of seats with 29 seats in each row. Work out an estimate for the number of people the cinema can hold, by rounding each number to 1 significant figure.
- 8.Work out the gradient of the straight line that passes through the points (−1, 5) and (3, −7).
- 9.A mortar mix is made from sand and cement in the ratio 5 : 3. Write the ratio of sand to the total mix in its simplest form.
- 10.A hexagonal prism has 8 faces and 12 vertices. Using F + V − E = 2, work out how many edges it has.
- 11.A school recorded what 60 students chose for lunch. 35 of the students are in Year 10 and the rest are in Year 11. 20 of the Year 10 students chose a sandwich and 9 of the Year 11 students chose a sandwich. Everyone else chose a hot meal. Work out how many Year 11 students chose a hot meal.
- 12.Write the fraction 9/25 as a decimal.
- 13.A cafe sells coffees at £c each and pastries at £p each. Three coffees and two pastries cost £9.60. Two coffees and two pastries cost £7.60. Work out the price of one coffee.
- 14.A rectangle has its height and its width in the ratio 3:2. The height of the rectangle is 18 cm. Work out the width of the rectangle.
- 15.Two sides of a triangle are 9 cm and 15 cm long. Write down which one of these lengths is possible for the third side.
- 16.Round 0.006852 to 2 significant figures.
- 17.A printer starts a job with 480 sheets of paper loaded and prints at a steady rate. The number of sheets left, S, after t minutes is given by S = 480 − 24t. Work out how many minutes it takes for the paper to run out completely.
- 18.A savings account pays 3.5% compound interest each year. Bilal invests £1200. Work out how much interest, in total, he earns after 2 years, to the nearest penny.
- 19.A tin of paint has a mass of 5.672 kg. Round this mass to 1 decimal place.
- 20.A map has a scale of 1 : 1000. A road is 300 m long in real life. Work out the length of the road on the map, in centimetres.
Answer key
- (d) 8 — Method: whatever is inside the brackets is worked out first, and the multiplication is carried out afterwards. Working: inside the brackets, −3 + 7 = 4, and then 2 × 4 = 8. Answer: 8. The distractors: 1 comes from ignoring the brackets and multiplying first, giving 2 × (−3) = −6 and then −6 + 7 = 1; −20 comes from reading −3 + 7 as −(3 + 7) = −10, so that 2 × (−10) = −20; 6 comes from working the brackets out correctly and then adding the 2 instead of multiplying by it, giving 2 + 4 = 6.
- (c) x = −2 or x = 4 — The solutions of x² − 2x − 8 = 0 are the x-values where y = 0. From the table, y = 0 when x = −2 and when x = 4, so those are the two solutions. Distractor origins: x = −1 or x = 3 picks the pair of x-values that give equal (but non-zero) y-values instead of y = 0; x = 0 or x = −8 mixes up an x-value with its corresponding y-value; x = −2 only reads off one of the two roots and misses the other.
- (c) They are in direct proportion, because y ÷ x = 2.5 for both pairs. — Testing direct proportion means checking that y ÷ x is the same for every pair: 15 ÷ 6 = 2.5 and 25 ÷ 10 = 2.5, so the quantities are in direct proportion. Saying they are not in proportion because x + y differs uses addition, which is not the correct test for proportion. Saying they are not in proportion because y − x differs also uses the wrong test — subtraction, not division. Saying they are in proportion because x × y is 90 and 250 uses multiplication, which is the test for inverse proportion, and the two products are not even equal to each other, so this option also contradicts itself.
- (d) (−2, 6) — Method: add the top numbers of both vectors to the starting x-coordinate, and the bottom numbers of both vectors to the starting y-coordinate. Working: x-coordinate 2 + 3 + (−7) = −2; y-coordinate −1 + 5 + 2 = 6. Answer: (−2, 6). A candidate who only applies vector u and forgets v gets (5, 4). A candidate who only applies vector v and forgets u gets (−5, 1). A candidate who works out the combined vector u + v but forgets to add it to the starting point gets (−4, 7).
- (a) 1/5 — Method: find the probability that the counter is black, then use the fact that an event and its complement add to 1. Working: there are 2 + 8 = 10 counters, so P(black) = 8/10 = 4/5; the complement is 1 − 4/5, and writing 1 as 5/5 gives 5/5 − 4/5. Answer: 1/5. The distractors: 4/5 comes from giving the probability that the counter is black instead of its complement; 1/2 comes from assuming the two colours are equally likely because there are only two of them; 1/4 comes from writing the 2 white counters over the 8 black counters rather than over all 10 counters.
- (d) How much the temperatures varied over the seven days — Method: the range of a set of values is the largest value take away the smallest, so it is built from two values only and it measures the gap they leave between them. Working: the largest of the seven readings is 7 °C and the smallest is 2 °C, so the range is 7 − 2 = 5 °C. That figure says the week's readings covered a band 5 °C wide; it names no particular day and no particular reading. Answer: the range describes how much the temperatures varied over the seven days. The distractors: the temperature that occurred most often is the mode, which here is 3 °C, and a mode counts repeats instead of measuring a gap; the temperature typical of the week is an average, and the range is not an average, since it throws away every value lying between the two extremes; the number of different temperatures recorded is 6, a count of how many distinct values appear, while the range is a difference between two of them.
- (d) 600 — Method: the number of seats is the number of rows multiplied by the number of seats in each row, so round each number to 1 significant figure and then multiply the rounded values, which is quick because a product of two multiples of ten is found by multiplying the non-zero digits and attaching the zeros. Working: 21 rounds to 20 and 29 rounds to 30; 2 × 3 = 6, and 20 and 30 carry one zero each, so two zeros follow the 6. Answer: about 600 seats. The distractors: 50 comes from adding the two rounded numbers instead of multiplying them, 20 + 30; 60 comes from multiplying 20 by the 3 of 30 and forgetting the zero in 30; 6,000 comes from attaching three zeros to 2 × 3 when 20 and 30 provide only two between them.
- (b) −3 — Method: the gradient of a straight line is the change in y divided by the change in x, with the two coordinates taken in the same order in the numerator as in the denominator. Working: going from (−1, 5) to (3, −7), the change in y is −7 − 5 = −12 and the change in x is 3 − (−1) = 4, so the gradient is −12 ÷ 4 = −3. Answer: −3. The distractors: 3 comes from subtracting the y-coordinates in one order and the x-coordinates in the other, giving 12 ÷ 4; −1/3 comes from dividing the change in x by the change in y instead of the other way round, giving 4 ÷ (−12); −6 comes from working out 3 − (−1) as 3 − 1 = 2, so that the change in y is divided by 2 rather than by 4.
- (b) 5:8 — The mix has 5 parts sand and 3 parts cement, so 5 + 3 = 8 parts in total. Sand to total is 5 : 8, and since the highest common factor of 5 and 8 is 1, this is already in its simplest form. Giving 5 : 3 answers sand to cement, not sand to the total mix. Giving 3 : 8 is cement to total, the wrong part of the mix. Giving 8 : 5 has the total and the sand swapped round.
- (c) 18 — Rearranging F + V − E = 2 gives E = F + V − 2. Substitute F = 8 and V = 12: 8 + 12 − 2 = 18 edges. Choosing 20 comes from adding the faces and vertices but forgetting to subtract the 2 (8 + 12 = 20). Choosing 22 comes from adding the 2 instead of subtracting it (8 + 12 + 2 = 22). Choosing 16 comes from subtracting 2 twice by mistake (8 + 12 − 2 − 2 = 16).
- (b) 16 — Method: put the counts into a two-way table, complete the row totals, then subtract along the Year 11 row. Working: there are 60 students altogether and 35 are in Year 10, so the number in Year 11 is 60 − 35 = 25. Of those 25 students, 9 chose a sandwich, so the number who chose a hot meal is 25 − 9 = 16. Answer: 16 Year 11 students chose a hot meal. The distractors: 15 comes from subtracting along the Year 10 row instead, 35 − 20 = 15, which is the number of Year 10 hot meals; 25 is the Year 11 row total, written down before the sandwiches are taken off; 31 comes from working with the sandwich figures for the whole school, 60 − 20 − 9 = 31, which counts the Year 10 hot meals as well.
- (c) 0.36 — Method: convert the fraction to an equivalent fraction with denominator 100, then read off the decimal. Working: 9/25 = 36/100 (multiplying numerator and denominator by 4) = 0.36. Answer: 0.36. 2.8 comes from flipping the fraction and dividing the denominator by the numerator instead: 25 ÷ 9 = 2.77…, rounded to 2.8. 0.925 comes from writing the digits of the numerator and denominator directly after the decimal point without scaling the fraction. 0.9 comes from writing the numerator straight after the decimal point, as if the denominator were 10 rather than 25.
- (b) £2.00 — Subtracting the second equation from the first eliminates the pastries: (3c + 2p) − (2c + 2p) = 9.60 − 7.60, so c = 2.00. A candidate who divides the first total by the number of coffees alone, ignoring the pastries, would get 9.60 ÷ 3 = £3.20. A candidate who finds the price of a pastry instead of a coffee — using c = 2.00 in 2c + 2p = 7.60 to get p = 1.80 — would answer £1.80. A candidate who reaches the correct difference of £2.00 but then mistakenly divides again or misplaces the decimal point would get £0.20.
- (b) 12 cm — Method: height:width = 3:2 means both lengths are built from parts of the same size, so write 3:2 = 18:x, find one part and multiply by the number of parts in the width. Working: the height is 3 parts and measures 18 cm, so one part is 18 ÷ 3 = 6 cm; the width is 2 parts, so 2 × 6 = 12 cm. Answer: 12 cm. The distractors: 27 cm comes from using the ratio the wrong way round, 18 ÷ 2 × 3, which makes the width longer than the height even though 2 is the smaller part; 6 cm is the value of one part, given as the width instead of being doubled; 17 cm comes from treating the ratio as a difference — 3 − 2 = 1, so 1 cm is taken off the height — but a ratio scales the lengths, it does not subtract from them.
- (d) 10 cm — For a triangle to exist, any two sides must add up to more than the third side. 9 + 10 = 19 > 15, and 15 − 9 = 6 < 10, so 10 cm satisfies the triangle inequality. The other lengths fail: 6 cm gives 9 + 6 = 15, which is not more than 15; 24 cm and 26 cm are each at least as large as 9 + 15 = 24.
- (a) 0.0069 — Leading zeros are not significant, so the significant figures in 0.006852 start at 6: 6, 8, 5, 2. Rounding to 2 significant figures means keeping 6 and 8, and looking at the next digit, 5, to decide whether to round up. Since 5 rounds up, the second significant figure increases from 8 to 9: 0.006852 rounds to 0.0069. A candidate who rounded to 1 significant figure instead of 2 wrote 0.007. A candidate who rounded to 3 significant figures instead of 2 wrote 0.00685. A candidate who did not round up despite the next digit being 5 wrote 0.0068.
- (a) 20 — Method: the paper has run out when S = 0, so substitute S = 0 into the equation and solve for t. Working: 0 = 480 − 24t, so 24t = 480, and t = 480 / 24 = 20. Answer: it takes 20 minutes. The value 480 comes from giving the starting number of sheets, the intercept of the equation, instead of solving for t. The value 456 comes from working out 480 − 24 and stopping after one step instead of solving the equation fully. The value 0.05 comes from inverting the division, working out 24 / 480 instead of 480 / 24.
- (a) £85.47 — Value after 2 years: £1200 × 1.035 × 1.035 = £1285.47 (nearest penny). Interest earned = £1285.47 − £1200 = £85.47. £1285.47 is the total value of the account, not the interest earned on top of the original £1200. £84.00 comes from using simple interest instead of compound interest: £1200 × 0.035 × 2 = £84.00. £42.00 comes from working out only the first year's interest and stopping there: £1200 × 0.035 = £42.00.
- (c) 5.7 kg — Method: to round to 1 decimal place, keep one digit after the decimal point and let the digit in the second decimal place decide whether that digit stays as it is or goes up. Working: 5.672 has 6 in the first decimal place and 7 in the second decimal place; 7 is 5 or more, so the 6 goes up to 7 and the digits beyond the first decimal place are dropped. Answer: 5.7 kg. The distractors: 5.6 kg comes from chopping the digits after the first decimal place off instead of rounding them, which is truncation rather than rounding; 6.0 kg comes from rounding to the nearest whole kilogram instead of to 1 decimal place; 5.0 kg comes from chopping everything after the decimal point off, so the mass is both truncated and given to the wrong degree of accuracy.
- (d) 30 cm — Convert 300 m to centimetres: 300 m = 30 000 cm. The scale 1 : 1000 means the map length is the real length divided by 1000: 30 000 ÷ 1000 = 30, giving 30 cm. Dividing the unconverted 300 (metres, not centimetres) by 1000 gives 0.3 cm, far too small to be a real map measurement. Dividing by 10 000 instead of 1 000 gives 3 cm, ten times too small. Multiplying instead of dividing, 300 × 1000 = 300 000, gives 300 000 cm — using the scale the wrong way round, as if the map were bigger than real life.
How the 20 questions are shared out
- Number — 5 questions (25% of the qualification)
- Algebra — 4 questions (20% of the qualification)
- Ratio, proportion and rates of change — 5 questions (25% of the qualification)
- Geometry and measures — 3 questions (15% of the qualification)
- Probability — 2 questions (7.5% of the qualification)
- Statistics — 1 question (7.5% of the qualification)
Where an area has fewer printable questions than its share, the shortfall is filled from the other areas. These are original questions, not past papers.