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.A charity raffle sells 240 tickets at £1.85 each. 40% of the money raised is given to a local hospital. Work out how much money the hospital receives.
- 2.Which of these ratios is equivalent to 2:3?
- 3.Freya types 4² + 3² into her calculator and writes down 49. Work out the correct value of 4² + 3².
- 4.A charity shop and a school share collection-box money in the ratio 5 : 8. The charity shop receives £47.50. Work out how much the school receives.
- 5.Two lighthouses flash at the start of the same minute. The first lighthouse flashes every 8 minutes and the second flashes every 12 minutes. Work out how many minutes it will be until they next flash together.
- 6.Work out 3 + 4 × (−2).
- 7.A recipe for pastry uses flour and butter in the ratio 3:2. A baker has 180 g of butter and wants to make pastry using all of it. Work out the total mass of pastry the baker can make.
- 8.Write the ratio 2 : 1/4 as a ratio of whole numbers in its simplest form.
- 9.Work out 25% of 200.
- 10.2.4 kg of cheese costs £36. Work out the cost of 1.5 kg of the same cheese.
- 11.Write down the reciprocal of 0.2
- 12.Write the ratio 18:22 in its simplest form.
- 13.Three numbers are in the ratio 1:2:3. The three numbers add up to 72. Work out the largest of the three numbers.
- 14.For any two whole numbers, the product of the numbers is equal to the product of their highest common factor and their lowest common multiple. The highest common factor of 6 and 8 is 2, and 6 × 8 = 48. Work out the lowest common multiple of 6 and 8.
- 15.A jumper is reduced by 15% in a sale to a price of £42.50. Work out the original price.
- 16.A sum of £150 is divided between Ben and Chloe in the ratio 2:3. Work out Chloe's share.
- 17.At an animal shelter, the ratio of cats to dogs is 2:5. There are 18 more dogs than cats. Work out the number of cats.
- 18.Write £3.60 : £2.40 as a ratio in its simplest form.
- 19.Which of these ratios is equivalent to 6 : 10 : 14?
- 20.A company's turnover this year is £180,000. Last year's turnover was £120,000. Write down this year's turnover as a percentage of last year's turnover.
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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