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.Jack buys 3 books, each costing £4.25, and pays with a £20 note. Work out how much change he receives.
- 2.Write the ratio 4x : 6x in its simplest form, where x is a positive number.
- 3.A jumper is reduced by 15% in a sale to a price of £42.50. Work out the original price.
- 4.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.
- 5.A bag contains 7 red counters and 15 blue counters. Write down the ratio of red counters to blue counters in its simplest form.
- 6.Work out (−36) ÷ (−6) × 2
- 7.Work out 3/8 of 96.
- 8.A jug holds 3 litres of a drink that is 60% fruit juice. 1 litre of water is added to the jug. Work out the percentage of the new mixture that is fruit juice.
- 9.A cinema has 250 seats. 12% of the seats are reserved. Work out how many of the seats are reserved.
- 10.Work out an estimate for 6.8 × 41, by rounding each number to 1 significant figure.
- 11.Write the ratio 18:22 in its simplest form.
- 12.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.
- 13.A number, n, is a multiple of both 6 and 9. Work out the smallest possible value of n that is greater than 20.
- 14.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.
- 15.Work out ((−3) + 5) × (−4) − (−6) ÷ 2
- 16.There are 400 students at a school. 25% of them have a brother, 40% have a sister and 15% have both a brother and a sister. Work out how many of the students have neither a brother nor a sister.
- 17.Work out an estimate for 6.4 × 3.9, by rounding each number to the nearest whole number.
- 18.A shade of paint is made by mixing blue paint and white paint. To make 5 litres of the shade, 2 litres of blue paint is used and the rest is white paint. Write the ratio of blue paint to white paint in its simplest form.
- 19.Write the ratio 3/4 : 1/2 as a ratio of whole numbers in its simplest form.
- 20.A sofa costs £800. Its price is increased by 25%. Work out the new price of the sofa.
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
- 🧮 Paper 1 non-calculator warm-up — Higher · 20 questions · ~25 min
- 🎯 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