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.The price of a games console is reduced by 10%. In a later sale the reduced price is reduced by 10% again. Work out the overall percentage decrease.
- 2.Write 0.35 as a fraction in its lowest terms.
- 3.Work out the reciprocal of (2 + 3)
- 4.Work out an estimate for 37 × 84, by rounding each number to 1 significant figure.
- 5.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.
- 6.A restaurant adds a service charge of 15% to a bill of £120. Work out the service charge.
- 7.A sponsored walk is 36 km long. Aisha has completed 8/12 of the walk. Work out how far she has walked.
- 8.The price of a cycling helmet rises from £80 to £116. Work out the percentage increase.
- 9.Priya invests £750 in a savings account that pays simple interest. After 3 years, the account contains £840. Work out the annual rate of simple interest.
- 10.A laptop costs £720. A carrying case for it costs 1/9 of the price of the laptop. Work out the cost of the carrying case.
- 11.Write 0.25 as a fraction in its simplest form.
- 12.Work out an estimate for 6.8 × 41, by rounding each number to 1 significant figure.
- 13.A concert hall has 300 seats. 20% of the seats are in the balcony. Work out how many of the seats are in the balcony.
- 14.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.
- 15.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.
- 16.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.
- 17.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.
- 18.Work out 8% of £250.
- 19.In a test, Amelia answered 18 of the 24 questions correctly. Work out the percentage of the questions she answered correctly.
- 20.Work out ((−3) + 5) × (−4) − (−6) ÷ 2
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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