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 √144 − 2 × 3 + √25
- 2.Priya has 24 red beads and 36 blue beads. She makes identical bracelets, using every bead and with none left over. Work out the greatest number of bracelets she can make.
- 3.After a price increase of 10%, a laptop costs £330. Work out the original price.
- 4.Work out (−3) × 4 + 10
- 5.Write 3/4 as a percentage.
- 6.Work out 25% of 200.
- 7.A box holds 140 pens. 25% of the pens are red. Work out how many of the pens are red.
- 8.Isla and her brother share £60 in the ratio 1:2. Work out Isla's share.
- 9.Write the ratio 5 : 8 in the form 1 : n.
- 10.A café buys 18 boxes of teabags at £3.45 each, and sells all the teabags for £108 in total. Work out the café's profit.
- 11.In a test, Amelia answered 18 of the 24 questions correctly. Work out the percentage of the questions she answered correctly.
- 12.Work out an estimate for 113 + 491, by rounding each number to the nearest 100.
- 13.A ribbon of length 90 cm is cut into two pieces in the ratio 4:5. Work out the length of the shorter piece.
- 14.Work out (5 + 2) × 3²
- 15.Write 200 as a product of its prime factors, using index notation.
- 16.Write 2 m : 150 cm : 50 cm as a ratio of whole numbers in its simplest form.
- 17.Write 0.25 as a fraction in its simplest form.
- 18.A jug holds 3 1/3 litres of juice. Each glass holds 2/3 of a litre. Work out how many glasses can be filled from the jug.
- 19.Work out 3/8 of 96.
- 20.Write 0.36 as a fraction in its simplest form.
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.
Similar worksheets worth a look
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- 🎯 Grade 4 pass booster · 25 questions · ~40 min
- ⚖️ Foundation to Higher crossover check · 20 questions · ~35 min
- 💷 Percentages and compound interest · 22 questions · ~40 min