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 box contains 12 red counters and 18 blue counters. Write the number of red counters as a fraction of the number of blue counters. Give your answer in its simplest form.
- 2.Solve the inequality 9 − 2x ≥ 1.
- 3.A rhombus has all four sides equal in length. Which statement about a rhombus is correct?
- 4.How many faces does a cuboid have?
- 5.A tin of paint has a mass of 5.672 kg. Round this mass to 1 decimal place.
- 6.A gym charges a reduced price for the first month of membership and a standard price for every month after that. The total cost is £5 for 1 month, £12 for 2 months, £19 for 3 months and £26 for 4 months. Work out an expression, in terms of n, for the total cost, in pounds, of n months of membership.
- 7.A circle has centre O. PQ, RS and TU are three chords of the circle, and only one of them passes through O. Write down what this tells you about that chord.
- 8.Four pairs of variables are listed below. Write down the pair that you would expect to show no correlation.
- 9.Solve x² − 100 = 0.
- 10.Four locations each record a temperature one winter morning. Which of these temperatures is the coldest?
- 11.A parallelogram has a base of 4 cm and a perpendicular height of 17 cm. Work out the area of the parallelogram.
- 12.A company had 8000 employees. The number of employees decreased by 5% in the first year, and then increased by 5% in the second year. Work out the number of employees at the end of the second year, to the nearest whole number.
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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