20 questions on the grade 4-5 content both tiers share — a fair test of whether a Higher entry is the right call.
⚖️ Foundation to Higher crossover check
The tier decision is made by the school, but it is made on evidence, and this sheet is designed to produce some. Every question on it sits in the crossover band — the grade 4 to 5 content that appears on both the Foundation and the Higher papers: multiplying out and factorising, solving linear equations and inequalities, straight-line graphs and gradients, ratio and proportion, Pythagoras' theorem, angle reasoning, and averages from a frequency table. A student who works through this comfortably has the foundation a Higher entry needs. A student who is guessing on half of it will almost certainly come away with a better grade from a Foundation paper they can attempt in full. Useful for a parents' evening conversation, and for a department deciding entries.
- 1.Solve the inequality 6x ≥ 18.
- 2.Harry will spend at most £150 on a party. The cake costs £60 and each helium balloon costs £3. Solve an inequality to find all the possible numbers of balloons, x, that he can buy.
- 3.A rectangle has length (2x + 5) cm and width (x − 2) cm. Work out an expression, in terms of x, for the perimeter of the rectangle. Give your answer in its simplest form.
- 4.A roof truss has two horizontal parallel rafters, one above the other. A straight strut crosses both rafters. Where the strut crosses the lower rafter, the angle above the rafter and to the left of the strut is 65°. Work out the size of the angle above the upper rafter and to the right of the strut, where the strut crosses it.
- 5.A conservatory has a roof panel shaped like a regular octagon. Work out the interior angle of the octagon, then use it to work out the size of the reflex angle at the same vertex, on the outside of the roof panel.
- 6.A transversal crosses a pair of parallel lines. At one line, the angle is (5x + 4)°. The corresponding angle at the other line is (3x + 24)°. Work out the value of x.
- 7.A taxi company charges a £2.50 booking fee plus £1.80 per mile. A journey costs £15.10 in total. Work out the number of miles travelled.
- 8.Expand 7(a + 8)
- 9.Simplify 5x + 3y − 2x + y.
- 10.A café sold 10 sandwiches on each of four days: 10, 10, 10, 10. Work out the range of the numbers sold.
- 11.Factorise fully 56x − 24
- 12.In a recipe the mass of chocolate to the mass of milk is in the ratio 1:4. Amelia uses 200 g of milk. Work out the mass of chocolate she needs.
- 13.At a youth club the ratio of juniors to seniors is 3:5. There are 40 members altogether. Work out how many seniors there are.
- 14.Two angles are complementary. One of them is 35°. Work out the size of the other angle.
- 15.A laptop priced at £520 is first increased by 15%, and then the new price is decreased by 20%. Work out the final price of the laptop.
- 16.Simplify 5a/6 − a/3
- 17.Amelia's mean mark over four tests is 29. Her first three marks are 31, 26 and 26. Work out her fourth mark.
- 18.A television cable runs in a straight line from the edge of a flat roof 20 m above the ground to a bracket on a wall 5 m above the ground. The horizontal distance between the roof edge and the bracket is 15 m. Work out the length of the cable. Give your answer to 1 decimal place.
- 19.A straight line has gradient −3 and passes through the point (0, 1). Work out the value of y when x = 2.
- 20.The rent on a flat increases by 10% one year and by a further 10% the following year. Work out the overall percentage increase over the two years.
What is on this worksheet?
The sheet holds 20 questions drawn from the MathsUK bank — the content areas covered: Algebra, Ratio, proportion and rates of change, Geometry and measures, Statistics (statements A4, A17, A22, A9, R5, R9, G20, G3, S4). It is pitched at GCSE Foundation and takes about 35 minutes to work through in full. It works as a class handout, a homework, or a warm-up before a test.
How to use the sheet well
- Print it or open it on screen — both work. Printing is A4; the screen view fits phones and tablets.
- Do all 20 questions before checking — about 35 minutes is the guide, but there is no time pressure.
- Check the answers — press “Show answers” or print the answer page separately.
- Redo the questions you got wrong — twice as effective as doing 20 fresh ones.
- “New questions” — builds a fresh sheet on the same statements, so you can practise again without repeats.
Why this sheet helps
MathsUK worksheets use questions graded by difficulty and a fair spread of correct-answer positions (the answer is not always (a)) — so the student really has to think about each question rather than guess a pattern. Every question is tagged to a DfE content statement and checked before it enters the bank. The answers come with a step-by-step explanation, not just a value — so a wrong answer becomes a lesson.
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