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 pump fills a paddling pool at a rate of 130 litres per hour. Work out the rate in litres per minute, to 2 decimal places.
- 2.A currency conversion graph shows that £4 is equivalent to 5 US dollars. Use this to work out how many US dollars are equivalent to £24.
- 3.A country has an area of 25,000,000 hectares. Write this area in standard form.
- 4.A quadratic curve has a minimum turning point at (3, −4). Which of these statements about the curve must be true?
- 5.Write down the gradient of the line with equation y = −x + 3.y = −x + 3
- 6.Two angles lie on a straight line. One angle is 37°. Work out the size of the other angle.
- 7.A red blood cell has a diameter of about 7 × 10⁻⁶ metres. A virus has a diameter about 100 times smaller. Work out the diameter of the virus. Give your answer in standard form.
- 8.Work out the highest common factor of 12 and 18.
- 9.Work out the exact value of (sin 30°)² + (cos 30°)².
- 10.Sam has £24. Tom has £16. Write the amount of money Sam has as a fraction of the amount of money Tom has, giving your answer in its simplest form.
- 11.Write 200 as a product of its prime factors, using index notation.
- 12.A sector of a circle has radius 9 cm and angle 40°. Work out the area of the sector, in terms of π.
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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