20 questions with no calculator: the four operations, fractions, percentages, order of operations, factors and estimation.
✏️ Paper 1 non-calculator warm-up — Foundation
Paper 1 is worth exactly as much as each calculator paper, and it is the one most Foundation students practise least. This sheet is a warm-up for it: twenty questions drawn from the number and ratio statements that turn up on the non-calculator paper year after year — column arithmetic with decimals and negatives, adding and subtracting fractions, percentages of amounts, priority of operations, factors and multiples, and estimating by rounding to one significant figure. Do it with a pen and nothing else. Twenty-five minutes is about right, but do not stop early if you need longer; the point is to find out which of these have quietly gone rusty, not to score well. Mark it, then go back to the topic page for whichever one cost you the most.
- 1.Work out 3/8 of 96.
- 2.A fruit bowl contains 9 apples and 21 oranges. Write down the ratio of apples to oranges in its simplest form.
- 3.Work out an estimate for 312 × 19, by rounding each number to 1 significant figure.
- 4.A student writes 0.08 as the fraction 8/10, reading the 8 as if it stood in the tenths column and ignoring the zero. Work out the correct fraction that 0.08 is equal to, giving your answer in its simplest form.
- 5.40% of a number is 12 more than 25% of the same number. Work out the number.
- 6.Work out 1 − 1/2 − 1/4 − 1/8 − 1/16. Give your answer as a fraction.
- 7.A gardener has 42 tulip bulbs and 56 daffodil bulbs. She plants them in rows, with every row containing the same number of tulip bulbs and the same number of daffodil bulbs, and no bulbs left over. Work out the greatest number of rows she can plant.
- 8.A spreadsheet shows that 812 − 397 = 315. Work out an estimate for 812 − 397, by rounding each number to the nearest 100, to check whether the spreadsheet's answer is reasonable.
- 9.A pack contains 20 stickers. Noah gives 1/5 of the pack to his sister. Work out how many stickers he gives away.
- 10.Oliver uses his calculator to work out 25% of 80 and writes down 320. Without using a calculator, work out the correct value of 25% of 80.
- 11.A recipe uses 0.625 kg of flour. Write this mass as a fraction of a kilogram, in its simplest form.
- 12.Work out an estimate for 2.9² + 3.1², by rounding each number to the nearest whole number.
- 13.A jacket normally costs £65. In a sale it is reduced by 20%, and the shop then takes a further £5 off at the till. Work out the final price.
- 14.A number is divided by 5, then 6 is subtracted, giving the result −1. Work out the number.
- 15.Write the ratio 0.75 : 2 as a ratio of whole numbers in its simplest form.
- 16.A plank of wood is 5 1/4 m long. Pieces of length 3/4 m are cut from it. Work out how many complete pieces of 3/4 m can be cut from the plank.
- 17.3/5 of the students in a year group walk to school. 90 students walk to school. Work out the total number of students in the year group.
- 18.Write 0.25 as a fraction in its simplest form.
- 19.A minibus can carry 16 passengers. A school is taking 179 pupils on a trip. By rounding 179 to the nearest 10, work out an estimate for the number of minibuses needed, given that the school cannot hire part of a minibus.
- 20.Which of these numbers is a common factor of 18 and 24?
What is on this worksheet?
The sheet holds 20 questions drawn from the MathsUK bank — the content areas covered: Number, Ratio, proportion and rates of change (statements N2, N3, N4, N10, N12, N14, R4, R5, R9). It is pitched at GCSE Foundation and takes about 25 minutes to work through in full. It is built for independent practice, with full answers at the end for self-marking.
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 25 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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