12 short questions across all six content areas, designed as a lesson starter or a daily warm-up.
⏱️ Ten-minute starters — Foundation
Twelve short questions, two from each of the six content areas: number, algebra, ratio, geometry, probability and statistics. Nothing here needs more than a minute, and nothing needs a calculator. It is built as a lesson starter — print it, hand it out, take ten minutes, mark it together — and it works just as well as a daily warm-up at home in the fortnight before a mock. The value is in the spread rather than the depth: a student who has spent a week on algebra can find out in ten minutes what a week away from statistics has cost. Generate a new sheet whenever you want a fresh twelve on the same pattern.
- 1.A car travels 90 km using 6 litres of petrol. Work out how far the car can travel, at the same rate, using 9 litres of petrol.
- 2.A postcard measuring 10 cm by 15 cm is enlarged by a scale factor of 2 to make a poster. Work out the area of the poster, in cm².
- 3.At a book fair the ratio of fiction books to non-fiction books is 4 : 5. Of the non-fiction books, 3/5 are about history. Work out the fraction of all the books at the fair that are history books.
- 4.Simplify (y³)⁴, giving your answer as a single power of y.
- 5.Work out the value of 2⁻⁴
- 6.A rectangular field has length (3a + 2) metres and width (a − 1) metres. Write a simplified expression for the perimeter of the field.
- 7.A sector of a circle has radius 6 cm and an area of 4.71 cm². Using π = 3.14, work out the angle of the sector.
- 8.A cuboid has a length, width and height that are all different from each other. How many planes of symmetry does it have?
- 9.Work out an estimate for 79.3 − 24.6, by rounding each number to the nearest whole number.
- 10.Two ordinary fair dice are rolled. Work out the probability that both dice show the same score.
- 11.A pupil must choose 2 different subjects at random from these five: maths, physics, biology, chemistry and history. Work out the probability that the two subjects chosen are maths and biology.
- 12.At a point on a straight line, two angles are formed. One of them is 63°. Work out the size of the other angle.
What is on this worksheet?
The sheet holds 12 questions drawn from the MathsUK bank — the content areas covered: Number, Algebra, Ratio, proportion and rates of change, Geometry and measures, Probability, Statistics. It is pitched at GCSE Foundation and takes about 10 minutes to work through in full. It works as a class handout, a homework, or a warm-up before a test.
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 12 questions before checking — about 10 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 12 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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