Printable · GCSE Foundation · ages 14-16
Number worksheet — GCSE Foundation
Fifteen questions across the number statements at Foundation tier. Choose the non-calculator filter to rehearse Paper 1, which counts for a third of the marks.
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Number worksheet — GCSE Foundation
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- 1.A washing machine costs £320 before VAT. VAT is charged at 20%. Work out the total price including VAT.
- 2.The diameter of an artificial silk fibre is 4 × 10⁻⁶ metres. One nanometre is 10⁻⁹ metres. Work out the diameter of the fibre in nanometres.
- 3.A charity raises 8 × 10⁶ pounds. This total is shared equally among 2 × 10² local projects. Work out how much each project receives, in standard form.
- 4.After a price increase of 10%, a laptop costs £330. Work out the original price.
- 5.A charity raffle sells 240 tickets at £1.85 each. 40% of the money raised is given to a local hospital. Work out how much money the hospital receives.
- 6.Write these three numbers in order, starting with the smallest: 7/20, 0.3, 32%
- 7.A plane flies 2340 km at an average speed of 780 km/h. It departs at 08:20. Work out the arrival time, using the 24-hour clock.
- 8.A courier's van has a weight limit of 850 kg for its parcels. The driver's display shows the total mass of the parcels loaded as 850 kg, correct to the nearest 5 kg. Decide whether the parcels are definitely within the weight limit.
- 9.A cube-shaped storage box has edges of length 7 cm. A shelf can hold a total volume of 2,000 cm³. Work out the greatest number of these boxes that will fit in that volume.
- 10.Work out (3 × 10²) × (2 × 10⁵). Give your answer in standard form.
- 11.A tap fills a 20 litre bucket in 2 minutes 30 seconds. Work out the rate of flow, in litres per minute.
- 12.A plank of wood is 5 1/4 m long. Pieces of length 3/4 m are cut from it. Work out how many complete pieces of 3/4 m can be cut from the plank.
- 13.A café offers 3 types of soup and 4 types of bread roll. Work out how many different combinations of one soup and one bread roll are possible.
- 14.A charity bake sale sells 187 cakes at £2.95 each. By rounding each number to 1 significant figure, work out an estimate for the total amount raised.
- 15.The rainfall in a town during April is recorded as 62.4 mm, correct to 1 decimal place. Write down the error interval for the actual rainfall, r mm.
Answer key
- (c) £384.00 — Adding 20% VAT means multiplying the price by 1.2: £320 × 1.2 = £384.00. Treating the 20% as a flat £20 rather than a percentage of the price, £320 + £20, gives £340.00. Working out the VAT amount alone, £320 × 0.2 = £64.00, and stopping there without adding it back to the original price gives just the VAT, not the total price. Misplacing the decimal point and using 2% instead of 20%, £320 × 1.02, gives £326.40.
- (a) 4,000 nanometres — Method: the number of nanometres is the diameter divided by the length of one nanometre, and dividing powers of ten means subtracting the indices. Working: −6 − (−9) = 3, so 10⁻⁶ ÷ 10⁻⁹ = 10³, and the diameter is 4 × 10³ nanometres. Answer: 4,000 nanometres. The distractors: 400 nanometres comes from taking the difference between the indices as 2 instead of 3; 4 nanometres comes from changing the name of the unit without converting, leaving the coefficient untouched; 0.004 nanometres comes from dividing by 10³ instead of multiplying by it, as though a nanometre were the larger of the two units.
- (c) 4 × 10⁴ — 8 ÷ 2 = 4, and 6 − 2 = 4, so each project receives 4 × 10⁴ pounds. Multiplying the exponents instead of subtracting them gives 6 × 2 = 12, so 4 × 10¹². Adding the exponents instead of subtracting them gives 6 + 2 = 8, so 4 × 10⁸. Subtracting the coefficients instead of dividing them gives 8 − 2 = 6, so 6 × 10⁴.
- (b) £300 — The increased price is 110% of the original, so the original price = £330 ÷ 1.1 = £300. A candidate who finds 10% of £330 and subtracts it, wrongly treating £330 as the original, gets £330 − £33 = £297. A candidate who adds 10% of £330 again instead of reversing the increase gets £330 + £33 = £363. A candidate who divides by 0.1 instead of 1.1 gets £3,300.
- (a) £177.60 — Total raised = 240 × £1.85 = £444.00. The hospital receives 40% of this: £444.00 × 0.4 = £177.60. A candidate who works out the remaining 60% instead of the 40% given away gets £266.40. A candidate who forgets to find the percentage and gives the full total gets £444.00. A candidate who halves 40% by mistake and uses 20% gets £88.80.
- (b) 0.3, 32%, 7/20 — Method: convert every number to a decimal so they can be compared on the same scale. Working: 7/20 = 0.35, 0.3 stays as 0.3, and 32% = 0.32. Comparing 0.3, 0.32 and 0.35 in size gives the order 0.3, then 0.32, then 0.35. Answer: 0.3, 32%, 7/20. 7/20, 32%, 0.3 lists the numbers from largest to smallest instead of smallest to largest. 0.3, 7/20, 32% swaps 32% and 7/20, treating the fraction 7/20 as smaller even though 7/20 = 0.35 is bigger than 32% = 0.32. 32%, 0.3, 7/20 comes from moving the digits one place too far when converting the percentage, giving 0.032 instead of 0.32, which makes 32% look far smaller than it really is.
- (a) 11:20 — Method: find the flight time using time = distance ÷ speed, then add this to the departure time. Working: 2340 ÷ 780 = 3 hours; 08:20 + 3 hours = 11:20. Answer: 11:20. 08:40 comes from dividing speed by distance instead of distance by speed, giving a flight time of 1/3 hour (20 minutes) rather than 3 hours. 11:00 comes from adding the 3-hour flight time to the hour of the departure time only, 8 + 3 = 11, and losing the 20 minutes. 03:00 comes from finding the flight time correctly but giving it as a clock time on its own, forgetting to add it to the departure time.
- (b) No, the true mass could be as high as 852.5 kg — Method: find the upper bound of the true mass and compare it with the weight limit. Working: the display is correct to the nearest 5 kg, so half of 5 kg is 2.5 kg, and the true mass, m kg, satisfies 847.5 ≤ m < 852.5. Part of that interval lies above 850 kg, so the parcels are not definitely within the limit. Answer: the true mass could be as high as 852.5 kg, which is above the limit. ("Yes, the display reads 850 kg, which is not above the limit" compares the limit with the displayed value instead of with the largest value the true mass could take. "Yes, the true mass is at least 847.5 kg and at most 850 kg" uses the correct half unit below but caps the interval at the limit instead of at 852.5 kg. "No, 850 kg on the display rounds up to 855 kg" wrongly treats the displayed value as if it rounds again.)
- (c) 5 — Method: work out the volume of one box, divide the total volume by it, then round down since a partial box cannot fit. Working: volume of one box = 7³ = 343 cm³. 2000 ÷ 343 = 5.83 (2 d.p.). Since only whole boxes fit, the greatest number is 5. Answer: 5. (6 comes from rounding 5.83 up to the nearest whole number instead of rounding down to the number of boxes that actually fit. 343 comes from giving the volume of one box instead of the number of boxes. 5.8 comes from leaving the division as a decimal instead of rounding down to a whole number of boxes.)
- (d) 6 × 10⁷ — 3 × 2 = 6, and 2 + 5 = 7, so (3 × 10²) × (2 × 10⁵) = 6 × 10⁷. Multiplying the exponents instead of adding them gives 2 × 5 = 10, so 6 × 10¹⁰. Adding the coefficients instead of multiplying them gives 3 + 2 = 5, so 5 × 10⁷. Subtracting the exponents instead of adding them gives 5 − 2 = 3, so 6 × 10³.
- (a) 8 litres per minute — Method: write the time as a decimal number of minutes, then divide the volume by the time. Working: 30 seconds = 30/60 minute = 0.5 minute, so 2 minutes 30 seconds = 2.5 minutes. Rate = 20 ÷ 2.5 = 8 litres per minute. Answer: 8 litres per minute. (10 litres per minute comes from ignoring the extra 30 seconds and dividing by 2 minutes only. 8.7 litres per minute comes from misreading 2 minutes 30 seconds as 2.3 minutes instead of 2.5 minutes. 0.125 litres per minute comes from dividing the time by the volume instead of the volume by the time.)
- (a) 7 — Convert the mixed number to an improper fraction: 5 1/4 = 21/4. Dividing by 3/4 means multiplying by its reciprocal, 4/3: 21/4 × 4/3 gives 84/12, which simplifies to 7. So exactly 7 complete pieces of 3/4 m can be cut. Ignoring the 1/4 m and dividing only the whole number, 5 ÷ 3/4, gives 20/3, which is 6 complete pieces with some wood left over. Multiplying by 3/4 instead of its reciprocal, 21/4 × 3/4, gives 63/16, which is 3 complete pieces. Misreading 5 1/4 as the fraction 5/4, then dividing by 3/4, gives 5/3, which is only 1 complete piece. So 7 complete pieces can be cut from the plank.
- (b) 12 — Each of the 3 soups can be paired with each of the 4 bread rolls, so multiply: 3 × 4 = 12. 7 comes from adding the two numbers instead of multiplying them. 3 comes from using only the number of soups and ignoring the bread rolls. 4 comes from using only the number of bread rolls and ignoring the soups.
- (a) £600 — Method: round the number of cakes and the price of each cake to 1 significant figure, then multiply the rounded values. Working: 187 rounds to 200, and £2.95 rounds to £3 (the digit after the first, 9, rounds the 2 up to 3), so the estimate is 200 × £3 = £600. £400 comes from rounding £2.95 down to £2 instead of up to £3, giving 200 × £2 = £400. £561 comes from rounding only the price and using the exact number of cakes, 187 × £3 = £561. £570 comes from rounding 187 to the nearest 10 as 190 instead of to 1 significant figure as 200, giving 190 × £3 = £570. Answer: £600.
- (c) 62.35 ≤ r < 62.45 — Method: with a value rounded to 1 decimal place, the error interval reaches half of 0.1 either side. Working: half of 0.1 is 0.05, so the interval runs from 62.4 − 0.05 to 62.4 + 0.05. Answer: 62.35 ≤ r < 62.45. (62 ≤ r < 63 comes from rounding to the nearest whole number instead of 1 decimal place. 62.35 ≤ r ≤ 62.45 comes from including the upper bound with ≤ instead of excluding it with <. 62.3 ≤ r < 62.5 comes from using 0.1 either side instead of half of it.)
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