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 necklace is made using gold beads and silver beads in the ratio 7:3. There are 40 more gold beads than silver beads. Work out the total number of beads in the necklace.
- 2.At a bus station one bus leaves every 6 minutes and another leaves every 9 minutes. The two buses leave together at the start of the day. Work out how long it is until they next leave together.
- 3.Grace's mean mark in her maths tests rises from 70 to 84. Work out the percentage increase in her mean mark.
- 4.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.
- 5.Grace works out 7 × 99 by writing 99 as 100 − 1. Use her method to work out 7 × 99.
- 6.Work out 15% of £40, using 10% and 5%.
- 7.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.
- 8.Write 250 g : 2 kg as a ratio in its simplest form.
- 9.A tank contains 120 litres of water. Water is drained out at a rate of 8 litres per minute for 6 minutes, and then a hose adds 15 litres. Work out how much water is left in the tank.
- 10.A class has 28 pupils. 16 of the pupils are girls and the rest are boys. Write the ratio of girls to boys in its simplest form.
- 11.At midday the temperature in the Lake District was 3 °C. By midnight it had fallen to −6 °C. Work out the fall in temperature.
- 12.Write down the decimal that is equal to 3/5.
- 13.The price of a share falls by 10% on Monday and then rises by 10% on Tuesday. Work out the overall percentage change from Monday's starting price.
- 14.A shop buys boxes of pens for £4 each. It sells each box on to a school for £3 more than it paid, and charges an extra £2 delivery fee for the whole order. A school orders 5 boxes. Work out the total cost of the order.
- 15.Write £3.60 : £2.40 as a ratio in its simplest form.
- 16.Work out √25 + 4² − 12 ÷ 3
- 17.A roll of ribbon is 8.4 m long. Ribbon is cut into pieces that are each 0.6 m long. Work out how many complete pieces can be cut from the roll.
- 18.Write '3.2 million' as a number in figures.
- 19.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.
- 20.The price of a jacket increases by 50% and then decreases by 50%. Describe the overall change from the original price.
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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