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.Write the ratio 8 : 15 in the form 1 : n.
- 2.A recipe for one cake needs 2/3 of a cup of sugar. Priya has 3 1/2 cups of sugar. Work out how many complete cakes she can make.
- 3.Work out the highest common factor of 15 and 25.
- 4.Grace drinks 1/3 of a bottle of water in the morning and another 1/3 of the same bottle in the afternoon. Work out what fraction of the bottle she has drunk altogether.
- 5.A metal alloy is made from copper and tin in the ratio 7:3. Work out the mass of tin in 250 g of the alloy.
- 6.A shop assistant says that 7.2 × 3.9 = 56.16. Work out an estimate for 7.2 × 3.9, by rounding each number to the nearest whole number, to show that the assistant’s answer cannot be correct.
- 7.The number 24 can be written as 2³ × 3, and the number 60 can be written as 2² × 3 × 5. Work out the lowest common multiple of 24 and 60.
- 8.A florist has 60 red roses and 84 white roses. She wants to make identical bunches using all the flowers, with the greatest possible number of bunches. Work out how many red roses will be in each bunch.
- 9.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.
- 10.A carpenter has a plank of wood 4.8 m long. She cuts off 3 pieces, each 0.9 m long, to make shelves. Work out the length of wood remaining.
- 11.Put these three numbers in order of size, starting with the smallest: 3/8, 0.4, 0.35
- 12.A charity collects donations from adults and children in the ratio 5:2. Altogether, £238 is collected. Work out how much more the adults donate than the children.
- 13.Simplify the ratio 12 : 18 : 30 to its simplest form.
- 14.A gardener mixes 300 ml of plant feed concentrate with 1.2 litres of water to make a spray. Write the ratio of concentrate to water in its simplest form.
- 15.Write 0.35 as a fraction in its lowest terms.
- 16.Work out 35% of 180.
- 17.£120 is shared between three cousins in the ratio 3:4:5. Work out the largest share.
- 18.Work out an estimate for 113 + 491, by rounding each number to the nearest 100.
- 19.In a science lesson Priya has 10 litres of a solution that is 30% salt. She adds water to make a solution that is 20% salt. Work out how many litres of water she adds.
- 20.Work out an estimate for 6.4 × 3.9, by rounding each number to the nearest whole number.
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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