l'*łATH ł*1ATICS

Basic Mathematics
Alan Graham
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First published in UK 1995 by Hodder Education, part of
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This edition published 2010.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Wendy Austen, Carrie Graham, James Griffin and
Sally Kenny for their help in the preparation of this book.

Acknowledgements iii
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Contents
Meet the author ix
Only got a minute? x
Only got five minutes? xii

Part one – Understanding the basics

1 Reasons to be cheerful about mathematics 3
Is this book really for me? 3
Can I succeed now if I failed at school? 5
Hasn’t maths changed since I was at school? 6
Will it help to use a calculator? 7
Can I help my child? 8
2 The magic number machine 11
Numbers, numbers everywhere 11
Saying hello to your calculator 14
Introducing the counting numbers 15
Ordering numbers 17
Tens and units 18
Hundreds, thousands and beyond 21
Children and numbers 24
Answers to exercises for Chapter 2 25
3 Calculating with numbers 27
Properties of numbers 27
Adding 31
Subtracting 36
Multiplying 42
Dividing 46
Knowing what sum to do 50
Answers to exercises for Chapter 3 55
4 Fractions 61
Facing up to fractions 61
What is a fraction? 62
How to picture a fraction 64
Fitting fractions into the number line 65

What are equivalent fractions? 66

Contents v
 Adding and subtracting fractions 67
Multiplying and dividing fractions 69
Ratio and proportion 70
Answers to exercises for Chapter 4 73
5 Decimals 76
Decimal fractions 77
What is the point of the decimal point? 80
Using the four rules with decimals 82
Dividing fractions 84
An overview of decimals 85
Answers to exercises for Chapter 5 89
6 Percentages 94
What is a percentage? 95
Changing a fraction to a percentage 97
Why bother with percentages? 98
Calculating percentage increases and reductions 100
Persistent problems with percentages 105
Answers to exercises for Chapter 6 108
7 Measuring 113
What do we measure? 113
Why do we measure? 115
How do we measure? 117
How accurately should we measure? 119
Imperial and metric units 123
Answers to exercises for Chapter 7 130
8 Statistical graphs 134
Barcharts and piecharts 135
Scattergraphs and line graphs 139
Misleading graphs 144
Answers to exercises for Chapter 8 148
9 Using a formula 151
Is algebra abstract and irrelevant? 151
Algebra as shorthand 153
Calculating with formulas 157
Proving with algebra 161
Answers to exercises for Chapter 9 165

10 Puzzles, games and diversions 169

1 Bus number game 170
2 Pub cricket 171
v
 3 Guess my number 171
4 Finger tables 172
5 The story of 12 173
6 Magic squares 173
7 Magic triangle 174
8 Upside down 174
9 Logically speaking 175
10 The bells, the bells! 175
11 Calculator inversions 176
12 Four 4s 177
13 Return journey 178
14 Find the numbers 178
15 Explore and explain the pattern 178
16 1089 and all that 179
17 Large and small sums 180
18 Gold pieces 180
19 Initially speaking 181
20 Guess the number 181
21 Nim 182
22 Calculator snooker 182
23 Place invaders 183
Answers for Chapter 10 185
11 Spreadsheets 192
An overview of a spreadsheet 192
Why bother using a spreadsheet? 196
Using a spreadsheet 196
Number sequences on a spreadsheet 202
Percentages on a spreadsheet 204
What else will a spreadsheet do? 206
Answers to exercises for Chapter 11 207
12 Diagnostic quiz 210
Quiz 211
Solutions to the quiz 215
Detailed comments on the solutions 218

Part two – Mathematics in action (appendices)

Appendix A: Calculating a best buy 229
Appendix B: Reading the 24-hour clock 233
Appendix C: Bus and railway timetables 238
Appendix D: Checking the supermarket bill 243

Contents vii
 Appendix E: Understanding a shop receipt 247
Appendix F: Checking the VAT 250
Appendix G: Cooking with figures 253
Appendix H: Buying a TV set 259
Appendix I: Will it fit? 262
Appendix J: Measures of alcohol 265
Appendix K: Understanding barcodes 270
Appendix L: Junk mail and free offers 274
Appendix M: Winning on the National Lottery 277
Appendix N: Safe travel 284
Appendix O: World population 287
Taking it further 289
Index 293

v
Meet the author
Welcome to Basic Mathematics!

If you found that maths was something of a closed book at school,

please don’t feel intimidated or frightened by the prospect of
opening up and reading through this book now. Having spent
most of my adult life teaching adults at the Open University, I
have come to realise that 90% of people’s problems with the
subject stem from fear – fear of failure, fear of showing yourself up
in front of others, fear of feeling lost and confused. All of these
negative feelings combine to bring the shutters down on your
learning to the point where you are no longer able to listen or
even think.

You may be wondering what has changed to enable you to

succeed now where you didn’t before. The answer is, everything!
You may not fully realise it but as a functioning adult who has
survived in
the world beyond school, you have actually picked up a lot of
useful skills on the way:

€ you have a much better understanding of how the world

works – something that will be invaluable when it comes to
understanding, selecting and using mathematical skills.
€ you have greatly developed your thinking skills in the course of
tackling the many decisions and problems of your everyday life.
€ most importantly, you almost certainly now have a confidence
and a desire to learn that you didn’t possess at the age of 15.

All of these factors will combine to raise the shutters of your mind
so that it is truly open to the clear thinking needed to understand
and master mathematical skills.

And finally, remember that there is nothing that succeeds like

success. The more you find yourself getting the exercises right,
the more you’ll want to tackle the next one, and gradually you
will really start to believe that, yes, I’m becoming a
Contents ix
mathematician!

Meet the author ix

Only got a minute?
Mathematics is about numbers. But, more than that, it is about desc

includes number patterns (arithmetic) but also

patterns in shape and space (geometry). Increasingly,

our ‘digital’ world bombards us with numerical

information and

an essential life skill is being able to generate,

collect, observe and explain patterns when handling

data (statistics). Finally, mathematics is about

responding to an inner human need to pose and

solve problems, be they everyday problems or

those of the inventively curious mind.

There are four main strands of basic mathematics:

numbers and calculations
(arithmetic)

shape and space (geometry)

Maths
handling data (statistics)

solving problems

x
 In the main part of the book you will cover

these four themes; you will also learn what algebra is

about and discover how to use a spreadsheet.

You will have the chance to try a variety of

puzzles such as the one below:

What are the next two letters in this

sequence: O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, …, …?

Finally, at the end of this book, you will find

15 case studies showing you how mathematics can

help to solve everyday problems and provide

insights that would not otherwise have been obvious.

Only got a x
 5 Only got five minutes?

Numbers and calculations

For most people, the topics numbers and calculations represent the
core of the mathematics that they learnt at school; some basic ideas
about numbers are explained in Chapters 2 and 3. Clearly a sound
understanding of basic maths is useful not just for our own personal
needs but also to be able to help others (your child, for example).
So, these two chapters will help you to present ideas about numbers
to others and to clarify them for yourself. Chapter 2 will also help
you to become more familiar with a simple four-function calculator.

Fractions, decimals and percentages

Moving beyond whole numbers raises the question of what lies in-
between them. These ‘broken bits’ of numbers can be written using
fractions, decimals and percentages. These each require their own
special notation and include numbers like ‘three point seven’, ‘four
and three quarters’, ‘twenty five per cent’, and so on. In Chapters 4, 5
and 6, you will get a straightforward explanation of what fractions,
decimals and percentages are, how they are written (e.g. 3.7, 4¾
and 25%, respectively), why they are written that way and how to
perform calculations with them.

Measuring

How many times would you say you perform some measurement
task during the course of an average day? The answer is probably

xi
 much more often than you think. Sometimes the measurement
you do is formal – perhaps reading the time on a watch or clock,
checking the temperature on a thermostat, reading the dial (in
litres or in money) as you fill the car up with petrol, checking your
weight on the bathroom scales and so on.

There may be even more occasions where you are engaging in

informal measurement and this often involves making judgements
based on using estimation skills – like working out whether the
armchair will fit into the gap between the sideboard and the door
or choosing how many potatoes to cook for a family of four.
Informal measurement often involves the use of some everyday
template or benchmark against which to make comparisons. For
example, when estimating, say, 100 metres, I tend to think about
the length of a football pitch or when estimating weights I think of
a bag of sugar (1 kilo).

It is worth remembering that numbers which arise in the

everyday world have had to come from somewhere and the
chances are that they are the result of some measuring process.
But in order to handle these numbers sensibly and with
understanding, you need to know how they were measured and in
which measuring units. These are some of the issues explored in
Chapter 7.

Statistical graphs and charts

A University of California study suggests that 1.5 billion terabytes

of new information were created in 2008. (Note: a terabyte is one
trillion, or 1 000 000 000 000, bytes of information.) This is not a
static figure – estimates suggest that it is growing by roughly 30%
each year. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are drowning
in statistical data. And unfortunately, for most people, the sight of
a page full of figures gives them the heeby-jeebies.

There are two main ways of seeking out helpful patterns in data;

x
one is to use summaries like reducing the many numbers to a

Only got five minutes? xiii

simple average. The other is to depict the data visually using a statistical chart. It is the
learn some of the tricks and dodges used by advertisers and others to deliberately mis

Algebra

And then there’s algebra. I have often heard students observe,

when thinking back to their school days, that, just when they
were getting to grips with doing calculations involving numbers,
along came letters like x and y, and a and b, to really fox them.
So, what is the point of doing calculations with letters? For most
of us, school algebra was just about learning the rules of handling
expressions and equations involving letters, but we never actually
got to discover why that might be a useful thing to do. This is a bit
like a musician practising scales and arpeggios but never actually
getting to play a tune. It is a question that you should get a proper
answer to in Chapter 9.

Modelling with mathematics

Mathematics is usually defined in terms of the sets of skills it uses –

arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and so on. If your mathematics is to
be useful to you in the real world, knowing how to perform these
skills is clearly important. But just as important is the ability to
know what skills to use in any given situation and also being able
to translate your mathematical answer back into the real world
situation where the problem originated.

For your mathematical skills to be useful in solving everyday

problems, there are three stages involved: deciding what ‘sum’

x
to do, doing the ‘sum’ and interpreting the result. This is often
referred to as mathematical modelling. In Part two of the book,
‘Mathematics in action’, you are presented with 15 everyday
scenarios, a question is posed, and you are taken through the
solutions step by step. Remember that successfully tackling these
sorts of real problems is just as much about using thinking skills
and strategies as it is about being able to perform the calculations.

How to succeed at maths

Finally, here are four useful tips to help you to make your maths
journey an exciting and successful experience:

€ go at your own speed and be prepared to re-read sections if

necessary
€ where possible, relate the ideas to your own personal
experiences
€ try to learn actively (this means actually doing the exercises,
rather than saying vaguely, ‘Oh yes, I’m sure I can do that’)
€ be prepared to explore and experiment with ideas, particularly
by taking every opportunity to exploit technologies like the
calculator and computer.

Only got five minutes? xv

This page intentionally left blank
Part one
Understanding
the basics
This page intentionally left blank
 1
Reasons to be cheerful
about mathematics
In this chapter you will learn:
• why you can succeed at learning maths, even if you have failed
in the past
• why a calculator will help
• how to develop a positive attitude to maths.

Is this book really for me?

I wonder what made you decide to buy this book! No doubt each
individual has his or her own special reason. As author, I clearly can’t
meet everyone’s exact needs, so I tried to write this book with two
particular types of reader in mind. I will call them Marti and Mel.

MARTI

Marti was neither particularly good nor particularly bad at

mathematics, but was able to get by. She could usually work
out the sums set by her teacher at school, but never really
understood why they worked. She had a vague sense that there
was, potentially, an exciting mental world of mathematical ideas
to be explored but somehow it never happened for her. She now
has two children aged ten and six. She is aware that her own
attitudes to mathematics are being passed on all the time to her

1. Reasons to be cheerful about 3

 children and she wants to be able to encourage and help them
more effectively. The crunch for Marti came when her daughter
asked her about the difference between odd and even numbers.
Marti knew which numbers were odd and which were even, but
she couldn’t really explain why. She might have bought this book
to understand some of the basic ‘whys’ in mathematics.

MEL

Mel never got on with mathematics in school. He lost confidence

with it at an early stage and constantly had the feeling of ‘if only
the teacher and the other pupils knew how little I know, they’d be
shocked’. As the years went on, he learned to cover up his problems
and as a result he always had a bad feeling whenever mathematics
cropped up – a combination of fear of being caught out and guilt
at not properly facing up to it. He has a good job but his fear of
mathematics regularly causes him problems. He might have bought
this book in order to lay to rest the ghost of his mathematical
failure once and for all.

While your name is unlikely to be Mel or Marti, maybe there is an

aspect of their experiences of, and hopes for, mathematics learning
that you can identify with.

SHOULD I START AT CHAPTER 1 AND READ

RIGHT THROUGH THE BOOK?

The honest answer to this question is, ‘It all depends…’. If your
mathematics is reasonably sound, you might like to skip Chapters 1
to 3, which deal with basic ideas of what a number is (hundreds,
tens and units), how to add, subtract, multiply and divide and how
to make a start with a simple four-function calculator. However,
even if you do have a basic understanding of these things, you
could always skim-read these chapters, if only to boost your
confidence.

If, like Marti, you have an interest in helping someone else, say
a child, then read these three chapters with a teacher’s hat on.

4
They should provide you with some ideas about how you can help
someone else to grasp these ideas of basic arithmetic.

Can I succeed now if I failed at school?

There are a number of reasons that school mathematics may have

been dull and hard to grasp. Here are some resources that you may
have now which weren’t available to you when you were aged 15.

RELEVANCE

There were undoubtedly many more important things going on in

most people’s lives at the age of 8, 12 or 15 than learning about
adding fractions or solving equations. Mathematics just doesn’t
seem to be particularly important or relevant at school. But as you
get older, you are better able to appreciate some of the practical
applications of mathematics and how the various mathematical
ideas relate to the world of home and work. Even a willingness to
entertain abstract ideas for their curiosity value alone may seem
more attractive out of a school context. One student commented:

Yes, I think you can associate more with it. When you get to
our age, when you’ve a family and a home, I think you can
associate more if you do put it to more practical things. You
can see it better in your mind’s eye.

CONFIDENCE

As an adult learner, you can take a mature approach to your

study of mathematics and be honest in admitting when you don’t
understand. As one adult learner said after an unexpectedly
exciting and successful mathematics lesson conducted in a small
informal setting:

I felt I could ask the sort of question that I wouldn’t have

dared ask at school – like ‘What is a decimal?’

1. Reasons to be cheerful about 5

Insight
For many years I have been lucky enough to work for the Open University – sometim
‘second chance’ university. Many of our students, through no fault of their own, got

MOTIVATION

A third factor in your favour now is motivation. Children are

required to attend school and to turn up to their mathematics
lessons whether they want to or not. In contrast, you have
made a conscious choice to study this book, and the difference in
motivation is crucial. Perhaps you have chosen to read the book
because you need a better grasp of mathematics in order to be more
effective at work. Or maybe you are a mathephobic parent who
wants a better outlook for your own child. Or it is possible that
you have always regretted that your mathematical understanding
got lost somewhere, and it is simply time to lay that ghost to rest.

MATURITY AND EXPERIENCE

You are a very different person from when you were 8 or 15 years
old. You now have a richer vocabulary and a wide experience
of life, both of which will help you to grasp concepts you never
understood before.

Hasn’t maths changed since I was at school?

Mathematics has changed a bit since you were at school but not
by as much as you think. The changes have occurred more in

6
the language of mathematics than in the topics covered. Basic
arithmetic is still central to primary mathematics and today’s
12-year-olds are still having the same sorts of problems with
decimals and fractions as you did.

Insight
Visiting schools is a part of my job. In an infants’ classroom I was enjoying watch

Will it help to use a calculator?

Yes. Most adults have a calculator, but perhaps many rarely use
them. This book should help you overcome any anxiety you may
feel. As one student explains:

It’s only a thing with buttons, isn’t it. All right, it takes you
a while to know what each button is, but it’s like driving a
car. Once you’ve learnt which key to go to, you do it and
that’s it. It’s just a case of learning. No, it didn’t frighten
me.

You will need to get a calculator before reading the following

chapters. You won’t need anything more sophisticated (or more
expensive) than a simple ‘four function’ calculator (i.e. one which
does the four functions of add, subtract, multiply and divide).

There are a number of reasons why this book has been

written assuming a calculator is to hand and some of these
are spelt out in more detail at the start of the next chapter.
But two reasons to think about here are: Firstly, the calculator
is more than simply a calculating device. As you work through
this book, you will see how the calculator can be used as a

1. Reasons to be cheerful about 7

 means of learning and exploring mathematics. As one student
commented:

That was something that I enjoyed; knowing that you can

divide and get larger numbers. I mean, that was a thing that,
without the calculator, I would have been, … would never
have believed, but because it was instant, it was something I
could see straight away.

Secondly, being competent with mathematics isn’t just some

abstract skill that divides those who can from those who can’t.
Mathematical skills should be useful and insightful to you in your
real world and in the real world that most of us inhabit.

This chapter ends with a section on children’s mathematics.

This theme will recur throughout the book and I hope that,
even if you are not yourself a parent, you will find it interesting.
My experience of working with adults has been that looking
at children’s errors and experiences in mathematics can be a
fascinating ‘way in’ for the adults, giving a better understanding
of the key ideas of mathematics.

Can I help my child?

Many parents who were unsuccessful at mathematics themselves

have the depressing experience of watching their children follow in
mother’s or father’s footsteps. Being hopeless at mathematics seems
to run in families – or does it? While it certainly seems likely that
confidence in mathematics passes from parent to child, it is less
certain that ‘mathematical ability’ is inherited in this way. So if you
consider yourself to be a duffer at mathematics, there is no reason
to condemn your child to the same fate. Indeed, there is much that
you can do to build your child’s confidence and stimulate his or her
interest in the subject.

Try to stimulate your child’s thinking and curiosity about

mathematical ideas. The ideal setting for these conversations

8
might be in the kitchen, in a supermarket or on a long journey.
How, then, can parents encourage in their children a curiosity and
excitement about mathematical ideas? Below are a few general
pointers to indicate the sort of things you might say and do with
your child to achieve this aim by creating what we professionals
helpfully call a ‘mathematically stimulating environment’.

€ Where possible try to respond to your child’s questions

positively.
€ Encourage the desire to have a go at an answer, even if the
answer is wrong. Wrong answers should be opportunities
for learning, not occasions for punishment or humiliation.
€ Try to think about what makes children tick and the sort of
things they might be curious about.
€ Resist providing easy adult answers to your child’s questions
but rather try to draw further questions and theories from
her/him.
€ If a child gives a wrong answer it is probably for a good
reason. Try to discover the cause of the problem – it could be,
for example, that your question was not clearly expressed or
that the child is simply not ready for the concept.
€ There may be specific educational toys and apparatus which
are helpful to have around. Having said that, a four-year-old
will learn to count as effectively or ineffectively with pebbles or
bottle tops as with ‘proper’ counting bricks!
€ Finally, remember that ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions are at a
higher level of curiosity than ‘what’ questions and these should
be encouraged. (For example, ‘why does 2 × 3 = 3 × 2?’ is a
more stimulating question than ‘what is 2 × 3?’)

The biggest barrier to learning mathematics is fear: the fear of

being shown up as not understanding something which seems
to be patently obvious to the rest of humanity. The best way of
helping your child is to start by trying to overcome that fear in
yourself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know a simple fraction
from a compound fracture; your competence at mathematics is
less important than your willingness to be honest about what
you don’t understand yourself.

1. Reasons to be cheerful about 9

 Just as with cooking, carpentry or playing the piano, learning
mathematics doesn’t happen just by reading a book about it.
Although explanations can lead to understanding, practice is
necessary if you are to achieve mastery.

Insight
I once asked my son if his mathematical understanding benefited from having a maths
I just wanted short answers to simple things where I was stuck. Then I could go away

10
 2
The magic number machine
In this chapter you will learn:
• how to say ‘hello’ to your calculator
• about numbers and how they are represented
• how children first find out about numbers.

Note: In this and all subsequent chapters, comments on exercises

are given at the end of the chapter.

Numbers, numbers everywhere

Everywhere you look, numbers seem to leap out. They lie hidden
in recipe books, are stamped onto coins and printed onto stamps,
flash up on supermarket check-outs, provide us with breakfast
reading on cornflakes packets, are displayed on buses, spin round
on petrol pump dials, … It seems that, whatever task we want to
perform, numbers have some role to play. Here are a few more
examples.

€ A farmer will check that all the cows are in by counting them
as they go through the gate.
€ At church, the vicar reads out the hymn number. Members
of the congregation are able to find the hymn in their hymn
books only if they know how numbers are organized in
sequence.

2. The magic number machine 11

 € The recipe book says ‘pour into a 9-inch square tin and bake
at 180°C for 45–50 minutes’. For this to make sense, we need
to know about measurement of size in inches, temperature in
degrees Celsius and time in minutes.
€ Competitive sport is totally based on numbers, usually in
the form of scoring – half-time scores, number of runs,
highest break, winning times, …

You can probably think of lots more examples of your own.

It’s hard to imagine a world with no numbers. How would we
survive without them? What alternative ways might we think up
to organize human activity if we couldn’t count on numbers to
control them?

Exercise 2.1 is designed to help you to be more aware of the role

that numbers play in your life.

EXERCISE 2.1 How long can you last without

numbers?

Take a waking period of, say, 30 minutes of your life and see
how many situations require some use and understanding of
numbers. Then read on.

I tried the exercise while writing this chapter on my computer.

Within just a few seconds I found that I was adjusting the line width
of the text to exactly sixteen and a half centimetres.
EXERCI

Minutes later the phone rang and I was aware that the person on
the other end had just pressed a series of numbers.

The phone call was to fix a meeting, so I had to confirm the date and
time in my diary.

Shortly afterwards I went to make a cup of coffee (I don’t have a

very long attention span!). This involved putting milk and water into
a cup, placing it into the microwave and keying 1 45 (1 minute and
45 seconds) into the timer.

1
Numbers are the building bricks of mathematics. So, just like being
able to read, there are certain basic mathematical skills that you
need in order to live a normal life. For example, being able to:

€ read numbers and count

€ tell
the time
€ handle money when shopping
€ weigh and measure
€ understand timetables and simple graphs.

Insight
The word number crops up in many phrases and sayings.
To ‘do a number’ on someone means to cheat them. When your ‘number is up’, th

But as well as having a useful, practical side, solving problems

with mathematics can also be challenging and fun. Anyone who
has done dressmaking or carpentry knows that mathematics can
be used in two ways. One is in the practical sense of measuring
and using patterns and diagrams. The other is more abstract –
‘How can I cut out my pattern so as to use up the least material?’,
‘Can I use the symmetry of the garment to make two cuttings in
one?’ The pleasure you get from solving these sorts of problems is
what has kept mathematicians going for four thousand years!

Most of all, mathematics is a powerful tool for expressing and

communicating ideas. Sadly, too few people ever get a sense of
the ‘power to explain’ that mathematics offers.

Let us return now to these building bricks, the numbers, and see
what sense your calculator makes of them.

2. The magic number machine 13

 Saying hello to your calculator

Most basic calculators look something like this.

display screen

the ‘off’ key

% the ‘divide’ key
OFF
÷

MRC M+ the ‘multiply’ key

M
–

7 8 9 _ the ‘subtract’ key

the number pad

4 6 the ‘add’ key
5 +

1 = the ‘equals’ key

2 3

the ‘on’ and

‘clear’ key 0
ON/C

zero
the ‘decimal point’

Before we tackle the hard stuff, you should start by saying hello to
your calculator. Usual etiquette is as follows.

€ Press the ‘On’ switch (probably marked O or ON/C ).

€ Now key in the number 0.7734
€ Turn your calculator upside down and read its response on
the screen.

1
Good! Having now exchanged ‘hELLOs’, this is clearly the basis
for a good working relationship!

As was explained in the previous chapter, this book aims to teach

you basic mathematics with a calculator. There are a number of
good reasons for presenting the book in this way, some of which
are listed below.

€ For some types of problem, calculators take the slog out

of the arithmetic and allow you to focus your attention on
understanding what the problem is about.
€ Examination boards have largely designed their examinations on
the assumption that all candidates have access to a calculator.
€ Most importantly, the calculator provides a powerful aid to
learning mathematics. See if you are more convinced about
this by the time you have finished this book.

Insight
The word ‘minus’ is a source of great confusion in arithmetic as it has two possibl
More sophisticated calculators provide two different ‘minus’ keys for these two r

Introducing the counting numbers

Let us begin at the beginning, with the counting

numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, …

No doubt they look familiar enough. But before you reach for
pencil and paper, let’s see how they look on your calculator.

2. The magic number machine 15

 EXERCISE 2.2 Entering numbers

Switch on your calculator and key in the following sequence

123456789

Look carefully at the screen.

EXERCISE

Write down what is recorded and make a note of exactly how

the numbers are displayed.

If you look carefully at each number, you should see that it is

made up of a series of little dashes. For example, the 3 requires
five dashes and is written as follows.

You might like to consider in the next exercise which of the

numbers from 0 to 9 requires the fewest and which the most
dashes to be displayed.

EXERCISE 2.3 Displaying numbers

a Check how the other numbers are represented and count the
number of dashes each number needs. Then fill your answer
into the table below (one, the 3, has already been done for
you).

Number 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 89
Dashes 5
EXERCISE

b See if you can sketch any new combinations of dashes that are
not already covered by the numbers. If you were a calculator
designer, could you turn these into anything useful?

1
Your table should now enable you to answer the question posed
earlier, namely to spot which number requires the fewest and
which the most dashes to be displayed. Was your earlier guess
correct? In fact, the number 1 uses the fewest dashes (two), while
the 8 uses the most (all seven).

There are a few combinations not covered by the numbers.

For example:

and

One possible application of these shapes is to spell letters.

For example, the ‘E’ above could be used to refer to ‘Error’ if
an impossible key sequence was pressed. The ‘C’ could perhaps
be used to mean ‘Constant operating’ or maybe ‘Careful, you’re
hitting my keys too hard!’

Ordering numbers

Most calculators can be set up to produce number sequences.

Here is a simple one to try.

Press  1
Now press  repeatedly.

You should see the counting numbers in sequence: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, …

If this has not happened, try the following.

Either: Press   
1 and then the repeatedly.
Or: Press 1  1 and then the repeatedly.

What is going on here is that your calculator is doing a constant
‘add 1’ calculation.

2. The magic number machine 17

Insight
The capability to perform ‘constant’ calculations like this is available on most calcul

Tens and units

Let’s have another look at the sequence of counting numbers.

Repeat the instruction above, using the constant to add 1.

As before, repeatedly press  until the calculator displays 9.
The display should look like this.

9
Pause for a moment and then press the once more.

You should now see the following.
10
Most people will recognize that this is simply a ten, but note that it
is quite different from the previous numbers. Focus on the fact that
there are now not one but two figures displayed here. What has
happened in the move from nine to ten is that the nine has changed
to a zero and a new figure, the 1, has appeared to the left of the
zero, thus:

10
a new figure, the 1, has appeared in thisthe
column
nine has changed to a zero

It is worth reflecting on the fact that numbers do not need to do

this. As you saw from Exercise 2.3, the calculator has a few more
squiggles up its sleeve which might be used for extra numbers.
For example, the numbers could be extended to look like this:

1
 Zero One Two Three Four Five Six

Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen

But, as it happens, our number system doesn’t look like this.

Probably for the reason that most humans are born with ten fingers
and ten toes, we have come to an agreement that only ten unique
characters are needed for counting. These are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8 and 9.

These ten characters are called the numerals. The word numeral
refers to how we write numbers, rather than being concerned with
how many things the numbers represent.

After counting as far as 9, we simply group numbers in tens, and

count how many tens and how many left over. For example, here is
a scattering of just some of the one pound coins that I happened to
find when tidying up my daughter’s money box.

In order to count them, I might group them in tens, as follows.

So the columns represent the tens, and the ones left over are the
units. There are therefore 23 coins here: two tens and three units.

If you feel that you need practice at dealing with tens and units for
slightly larger numbers, have a go now at Exercise 2.4.

2. The magic number machine 19

 EXERCISE 2.4 Practising with tens and units

Switch your calculator on and once again set up the constant ‘add 1’ by
EXERCI

pressing the sequence:  1  (or by another method, depending on

your particular calculator. See page 18.)

Now enter the number 37 and press the  key four times.

The result should be 41.

In other words,
3 7... count on four more ... 4 1

three tens seven units

four tens one unit

Note that pressing any key at this point other than the number keys
and  is likely to destroy the constant setting. If, for example,
you have already pressed the ‘clear’ key, probably marked C or
ON/C
, you will need to reset the constant by rekeying 1 
or an
equivalent key sequence.

Once again, at the risk of being boring, you are reminded not to clear
the screen after each sequence, as this will destroy the constant setting.

Enter Press Expected Expected Answer

tens units

44 4 7 47
  
59      6 4 64
73         8 1 81
66     7 0 70

Don’t press ‘Clear’ here

This idea of grouping in tens is the very basis of counting up as

far as 99. The next section goes beyond tens and units, into the
world of hundreds and thousands.
2
Hundreds, thousands and beyond

EXERCISE 2.5 Handling hundreds

Switch your calculator on and once again set up the constant ‘add 1’
by a method suitable for your particular machine.

EXERCI
Now enter the number 96 and press the  key four times.

The result should be 100.

In other words,
9 6 ... count on four more ... 1 0 0

nine tens
six units

one hundred no tens no units

You should not press any key other than the number keys and  .
As before, if you have destroyed the constant, you will need to
reset it by rekeying  1  or an equivalent key sequence.

Remember also not to clear the screen after each sequence.

Enter Press Expected Expected Expected Answer

hundreds tens units

198    2 0 1 201
399      4 0 4 404
696      
7 0 2 702
897  sixteen times 9 1 3 913

The largest number you can produce with three figures is nine
hundred and ninety-nine. If you want to get any larger, you need to
regroup and create a new category of ‘ten hundreds’, which we call
one thousand.

2. The magic number machine 21

 Let’s explore thousands by setting the calculator to count up in
much larger steps; this time in intervals one hundred at a time. You

2
 may be able to work out for yourself how to do this. If not, try one
of the following sequences.

Press
 100 and then the  repeatedly.
Or: Press
  and then the  repeatedly.
100
 100 and then the  repeatedly.
Or: Press
100

As you do this exercise, try to develop a sense of what to expect

at the next press of  , particularly when the number in the
hundreds column is a 9.

To end this section, it is useful to be able to say numbers as well as

to write and interpret them.

EXERCISE 2.6 Saying numbers out loud

Set your calculator constant to add 1423.

This is done by 
 1423 (or 1423 or 1423  1423).
EXERCI

pressing

Now, each time you press the  key, try to say out loud the number
you see on the screen. Incidentally, it helps if you say the
numbers VERY LOUDLY INDEED. Don’t worry if other
members of your household or your dog think you are crossing
the final frontier.
This is normal behaviour for mathematical geniuses.

When you have completed this exercise, you can check your
answers with those given at the end of the chapter.

The number system represents a central theme in the work of

teachers of children in the early years of schooling. You may have
children of your own or may be interested in how these ideas
are tackled with young children. The final section of this chapter
invites you into the infant classroom to see what things go on and
what sorts of notions and difficulties young children have with
numbers.

2. The magic number machine 23

 EXERCISE 2.7 Ordering your figures

Using the figures 3, 9, 4 and 6 once only, write down:

EXERCI
a the largest possible four-figure whole number
b the smallest possible four-figure whole number.

Beyond thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands

lie two additional words that you should know: millions and
billions.

A million is a thousand thousand or 1 000 000.

A billion is a thousand million or 1 000 000 000.

Incidentally, notice how, with very large numbers like these,

the digits are often grouped in threes simply to make them easier
to read.

Insight
If you think a billion is a large number, try a googol, which is 1 followed by one h
is equivalent to ten billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, bi

By the way, the Google website was named as a play on the word ‘googol’.

To end this section, the term place value needs to be explained.

Place value is really another way of describing the whole idea
of hundreds, tens and units. It refers to the key idea of how our
number system works, namely that the ‘place’ of a digit (in other
words, its position in the number) is what determines its value.
For example, the two-digit number 37 is written as 3, followed on
the right by 7. By convention, we agree that the first of these
digits, the three, refers to three tens while the seven refers to
seven units. To understand this point is to understand the
principle of ‘place value’.

2
Children and numbers

For most children, number words first come into their world
through songs (‘Five little speckled frogs sitting on a log’, ‘One,
two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive’, and so on).
A feature of many such songs is that the numbers are sung in
sequence – sometimes the numbers go up and sometimes they go
down. This property of the way that numbers follow on from
each other in sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, … is the ordinal property of
numbers (ordinal as in the ‘order’).

The number line shown below is a helpful way of enabling children

to form a mental picture of the sequence of numbers.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 etc.

However, there is quite a step for children from understanding

numbers in a number line, to becoming aware of what the three-
ness of three really means in terms of the number of objects –
3 toys, 3 bricks, 3 sweets, 3 calculators, and so on. It is a major
breakthrough for a child when she learns that ‘three’ is a
description that can be applied to a whole variety of different
collections (or sets) of things. She will need many occasions in
which she physically grasps three objects before three-ness becomes
a concept that she can grasp mentally. This idea of a number
describing how many things there are is known as the cardinal
property of numbers. Many school activities in the early years deal
with this concept by means of play involving counting out various
objects – bricks, bottle tops, match boxes, and so on.

Finally, just in case you thought that helping children to understand

number was a straightforward exercise, try to pick your way
through the following exchange between a four-year-old and his
teacher, recorded in the book Wally’s Stories by Vivian Paley.

‘We have three 12s in this room’, Wally said one day. ‘A round
12, a long 12, and a short 12. The round 12 is the boss of the
clock, the long 12 is the ruler, and the short 12 is on a
calendar.’

2. The magic number machine 25

 ‘Why is the 12 on the calendar a short 12?’, I asked.

‘Me and Eddie measured it. It’s really a five. It comes out five
on the ruler.’

‘Right. It’s five.’ Wally stared thoughtfully at the clock.

‘I’m like the boss of March because my birthday is March

12. The 12 is on the top of the clock.’

Answers to exercises for Chapter 2

Exercises 2.1 to 2.5: No additional comments.

EXERCISE 2.6

1423 onSaid one

Written thousand
VERY fourINDEED
LOUDLY hundred the
andscreen
twenty-three
2846 two thousand eight hundred and forty-six
4269 four thousand two hundred and sixty-nine
5692 five thousand six hundred and ninety-two
7115 seven thousand one hundred and fifteen
8538 eight thousand five hundred and thirty-eight
9961 nine thousand nine hundred and sixty-one
11384 eleven thousand three hundred and eighty-four
12807 twelve thousand eight hundred and seven

EXERCISE 2.7

Using the figures 3, 9, 4 and 6:

a the largest possible four-figure whole number is 9643.

b the smallest possible four-figure whole number is 3469.

2
 SUMMARY
In this chapter you were introduced to your calculator and
shown its constant facility. You were then shown how to use the
calculator constant to count in ones or in any interval, and you
were then asked to count your way through our whole number
system, based on tens, hundreds and thousands. By closely
examining how numbers are represented on the calculator display,
we looked at the numerals, i.e. how numbers are written. But
numbers have other features worth exploring. Firstly, they form a
natural sequence. This is known as their ordinal property and is
nicely represented on a number line. They are also important as a
way of describing ‘how many’, which is their cardinal property.

CHECKLIST

You should have the ability to:

€ use the constant facility on your calculator to count on or

back in any interval.

2. The magic number machine 27

 3
Calculating with numbers
In this chapter you will learn:
• some important number words – like prime, square, odd and even
• what calculations you need in different situations
• about the ‘four rules’: add, subtract, multiply and divide
• how negative (i.e. minus) numbers fit in.

Properties of numbers

Before tackling the sorts of calculation that we normally do with

numbers, it is worth looking at some of the more useful properties
of numbers. You will find out what is meant by odd, even, prime,
rectangular and square numbers. These terms are best understood
by seeing the numbers arranged in patterns on the table in front
of you. So, before reading on, try to get hold of 10 or 12 small
identical objects (coins, buttons, or paper clips, for example).

EVEN OR ODD

Choose a selection of your objects (any number between 1 and 12

will do) and try to arrange themww into two rows, like this:

3. Calculating with numbers 27

 If, like me, you chose a number of coins that produced two equal
rows, then your selection was an even number of coins. In this
case, choosing ten coins produced two even rows of five each.
So ten is an even number.

However, perhaps your selection didn’t work out like this and, when
the two equal rows were formed, there was an odd one over – like this:

the odd one over

When any selection of things that are laid out into two rows
produce an odd one over, then there must have been an odd
number of them. In this case, choosing 11 coins produced two
equal rows
of five each plus an odd one over. So 11 is an odd number.

Exercise 3.1 will give you practice at deciding whether a number

is even or odd.

EXERCISE 3.1 Even or odd?

For each number, mark the box corresponding to whether it is

EXERCI

even or odd. The first one has been done for you.

Number 11 7 2 12 8 6 3 1 0
Even
Odd 

PRIME, RECTANGULAR AND SQUARE

Now choose six of the coins. Notice that they can be arranged in a
rectangle as two rows of three, like this:

2
or as three rows of two, like this:

Either way, six is a rectangular number because it can be arranged

in the form of a rectangle. Similarly, the number 18 is rectangular
because 18 coins could be arranged in this way:

Now try the same task with seven coins. You will soon find that this
is impossible. No matter how you move them around, the coins will
not form a rectangle; they can only be placed on a line, like this.

So seven is not a rectangular number.

3. Calculating with numbers 29

 Any number which can’t be arranged in the shape of a rectangle is
called prime, so 7 is a prime number.

Pause for a few moments now and think about what other prime
numbers there are.

Now choose nine coins and arrange them into three rows and three
columns, as shown below.

Notice that the coins have formed a square shape. The number 9 is
a square number because it can be arranged in the form of a square.
(Note: 9 is also a rectangular number. A square is a particular type
of rectangle.) What other square numbers can you think of?

The next exercise will give you the opportunity to practise your
understanding of these three terms: prime, rectangular and square
numbers.

EXERCISE 3.2 Prime, rectangular or square?

For each number, mark the boxes corresponding to whether it is

prime, rectangular or square. The first one has been done for you.
EXERCI

Note that
9 is both rectangular and square, so two boxes have been marked.

Number 9 7 2 12 8 5 3 4 11
Prime
Rectangular 
Square 

3
You have already been introduced to the idea of square
numbers like 9 and 25. You should also know that the opposite
of a square is called a square root, and it is written as . A few
examples should illustrate what square root means.

The square of 5, written as 52, is 25.

The square root of 25, written as 25, is 5.

The square of 9, written as 92, is 81.

The square root of 81, written as 81, is 9.

The square of 10, written as 102, is 100.

The square root of 100, written as 100, is 10.

Adding

The four most basic things you can do to any two numbers is add
(+), subtract (–), multiply (×) and divide (÷) them. These are known
as the four rules (sometimes referred to as the four ‘operations’).

What follows in these four sections is an explanation of what each

operation means and how to perform it. You will be shown how to:

€ do each operation on the calculator

€ relate each operation to a helpful mental picture
€ do the operations mentally (i.e. in your head)
€ do the operations using pencil and paper.

3. Calculating with numbers 31

 CALCULATOR ADDITION

Switch your calculator on and, if necessary, press C to clear the

screen. Start with some simple ‘guess and press’ additions as shown
in Exercise 3.3.

EXERCISE 3.3 ‘Guess and press’ additions

a Guess the results to each addition below and then check

your answers on the calculator.
3  7 
7  3 
EXERCI

12  9 
99  5 
b Look again at your answers to the first two questions. Write
down in your own words what important property about
addition this demonstrates.
c Does the property you noted in part (b) also hold true
for subtraction, multiplication and division?

PICTURING ADDITION

Young children’s first exposure to addition is normally based on

the idea of being given a certain number of a particular object
(counters, sweets, coins, …) and then some more. The question to
ponder is: ‘How many do I now have altogether?’ Children find it
helpful to establish these ideas concretely using physical objects.

3 coins plus 2 more

makes 5 altogether

Later, they will be shown numbers presented pictorially and the

usual image is a number line. Here, addition is represented by
a movement to the right.

3
 Start End
3
1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

This example shows why 5 + 3 = 8. Start at position 5, take 3 steps

to the right and you end at position 8.

MENTAL ADDITION

There is no getting away from it – being able to add is essential,

both as a useful everyday skill and as a key building block for other
mathematics. As you will see in Exercise 3.4, the calculator can
really help you build up those mental calculating muscles.

EXERCISE 3.4 Practising adding

Set up your calculator constant to ‘add 5’ (see page 18 for

an explanation of how to use the calculator constant).

Press 0 and
 to see a 5 displayed.

then Keep
 repeatedly to see 10, 15, 20, 25, …

pressing
EXERCI

Now, don’t press any of the operation keys or the Clear key as this
will switch off the constant.

a Press 4 followed by    … But this time, try to

guess each answer before it is displayed.
b Set up your calculator constant to ‘add 7’ and repeat the
exercise given in part (a). Then, without switching off the
constant, key in a
different number (say, 2) and repeat by pressing    …
c Now try something more challenging, such as setting
the calculator constant to ‘add 17’ or ‘add 23’.

3. Calculating with numbers 33

 How would you react to adding, say, 19 and 49 in your head?
Many people find this hard, but here’s a tip.

€ Add 1 onto each number, giving 20 and 50 (note that you

have added 2 extra)
€ Add these numbers: 20 + 50 = 70
€ Adjust your answer (i.e. take off the 2 extra): 70 – 2 = 68

You can practise this shortcut by doing Exercise 3.5.

EXERCISE 3.5 Speed addition

Use the tip shown opposite to do these additions:

EXERCISE

a 28 + 39 b 21 + 59 c 19 + 38 + 9

Insight
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) was a precocious mathematical talent from an early
minutes. He had spotted that by taking the numbers in pairs, 1 and 100, 2 and 99, 3 an

PENCIL AND PAPER ADDITION

Now, put your calculator to one side and look at how addition
with pencil and paper has traditionally been taught. These written
methods are more complicated to explain than to do and, with a
bit of practice, you’ll quickly speed up. Note that with the pencil
and paper method shown here, you always work from right
to left.

3
 Example 1
TU
Calculate 27 + 68.
Set out the sum like this with units under units (U) and 27
tens under tens (T). + 68

Add the units (7 + 8 = 15). Note that 15 is 5 units and 1 ten. 27

Write the 5 in the units column and ‘carry’ the 1 ten over +
618 into the tens column (shown here by a small ‘1’ beside the 6). 5

Add the tens (2 + 6 + 1 = 9) and write the 9 in the tens column. 27

+ 61 8
The answer: 95 95

Example 2
Calculate 173 + 269.
HTU
Set out the sum like this with units (U), tens (T) and
173
hundreds (H).
+269

Add the units (3 + 9 = 12). 173

Write the 2 in the units column and ‘carry’ the 1 ten over + 2 61 9
into the tens column (shown here by a small ‘1’ beside the 6). 2

Add the tens (7 + 6 + 1 = 14). 173

Note that 14 tens is really 4 tens and 1 hundred. Write the + 21 61 9
4 in the tens column and ‘carry’ the 1 hundred over into 42
the hundreds column (shown by a small ‘1’ beside the 2).

Add the hundreds (1 + 2 + 1 = 4) and write the 4 in the 173

hundreds column. + 21 61 9
The answer: 442 442

If you need more practice at pencil and paper addition, try making up
some questions, do them and check your answers on the calculator.

3. Calculating with numbers 35

 Subtracting

CALCULATOR SUBTRACTION

Switch your calculator on and, if necessary, press C to clear the

screen. Try the ‘guess and press’ subtractions in Exercise 3.6.

EXERCISE 3.6 ‘Guess and press’ subtraction

a Guess the results to each subtraction below and then check

your answer on the calculator.
12  7 
EXERCI

7  12 
32  27 
71  57 

b Look again at your answers to the first two questions. Write

down in your own words what important property about
subtraction this demonstrates.

PICTURING SUBTRACTION

Children’s concrete version of subtraction is based on starting

with a particular number of objects and taking some away.
The question is: ‘How many do I now have left?’

This picture demonstrates a key feature of subtraction – that it is

the reverse of addition.

5 coins take away 2

leaves 3

3
Whereas addition on a number line is represented by a movement
to the right, subtraction is represented by a movement to the left.

End Start
3
2 1

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

This example shows why 8 – 3 = 5. Start at position 8, take 3 steps

to the left and you end at position 5.

MENTAL SUBTRACTION

Just as you were able to use the calculator constant to help improve
addition skills, the same approach can be taken for subtraction.

EXERCISE 3.7 Practising subtraction

Set up your calculator constant to ‘subtract 5’ (do this using the 

rather than  key). Press 100 and  to see a 95 displayed.
the then
Keep pressing  repeatedly to see the number come down in steps
of 5: 90, 85, 80, 75, …

Now, don’t press any of the operation keys or the Clear key as this
EXERCI

will switch off the constant.

a Press 84 followed by
   … But this time, try to guess
each answer before it is
displayed.
b Set up your calculator constant to ‘subtract 7’ and repeat
the exercise given in part (a). Then, without switching off
the constant, key in a different starting number (say, 215)
and
repeat by pressing    …
c Now try subtracting larger numbers using the
calculator constant.

3. Calculating with numbers 37

 Note that if you keep subtracting repeatedly, eventually you
will reach zero. In fact, it is possible to go below zero, where you
will meet up with the negative numbers; these are explained
on page 53.

Although pencil and paper calculations are usually done from

right to left, there is no rule that requires you to do it this way.
For example, suppose you are subtracting 26 from 59 in your head.
Here is a useful tip for mental subtraction.

Subtract the tens first: 59 – 20 = 39.

Now subtract the 6: 39 – 6 = 33

Here is a slightly more awkward one: 56 – 29

Subtract the tens first: 56 – 20 = 36
Now subtract the 9: 36 – 9 = 27

You can practise this shortcut now by doing Exercise 3.8.

EXERCISE 3.8 Speed subtraction

Use the tip shown above to do these subtractions

EXERCI

a 68 – 35
b 98 – 56
c 72 – 55

Set yourself some more subtractions and check your answers with
the calculator.

PENCIL AND PAPER SUBTRACTION

Most children and many adults struggle with performing subtraction

on paper. The problem is that it is too easy to simply follow a set of
rules with no real understanding of why the method works. Then
you only have to get the rule slightly wrong and the game is up!

3
Although there is more than one way of setting out subtraction,
the method of decomposition is the most common and the
easiest to understand. Before galloping into an explanation of
decomposition, consider the following scenario, which will
explain in everyday terms what it is about.

Suppose you just bought two sweet packets, each containing

10 sweets – i.e. 20 sweets in all. Six friends turn up and you
generously decide to offer a sweet to each one.

20 sweets in two packs of 10

This involves breaking up one of the packets into 10 single sweets

before you can give one to each friend. What you have done here is
to decompose one ten into ten separate singles.

One 10, and

10 singles

After handing over the sweets, you have 14 sweets remaining – one
unopened packet of 10 and 4 singles.

One 10 and
4 singles

3. Calculating with numbers 39

 Joining in the feeding frenzy, five more friends turn up asking
for their sweet. Clearly you can do this but only if you open
(i.e. decompose) the second packet. This gives 14 singles.

14 singles

You hand over the 5 sweets and are left with 9.

9 remaining singles

Now look at a written subtraction using this method of

‘decomposition’. Note that, as with the written method for
addition, you always work from right to left.

Example 1
Calculate 63 – 37.
TU
Set out the sum like this with units under units (U) and tens under 6 3
tens (T). Try to subtract the units (3 – 7). However, because 7 is –37
bigger than 3, you need todecompose one of the tens in the 63.

1
Reduce the 6 in the tens column to 5 and ‘carry’ the 1 ten 5 3
over into the units column (shown here by a small ‘1’ beside – 3 7
the 3). This gives 13 in the units column.

1
Subtract the units (13 – 7 = 6) and write the 6 in the units 5 3
column. –3 7
6

1
Subtract the tens (5 – 3 = 2) and write the 2 in the tens 5 3
column. 3 7
The answer: 26 2 6

4
 Example 2
Calculate 534 – 147.
HT U
Set out the sum in columns like this, marked units (U),
5 34
tens (T) and hundreds (H). Try to subtract the units (4 – 7).
–1 4 7
However, because 7 is bigger than 4, you need to
decompose one of the tens in the 534.

1
Reduce the 3 in the tens column to 2 and ‘carry’ the 1 ten 5 2 4
over into the units column (shown here by a small ‘1’ beside – 1 4 7
the 4). This gives 14 in the units column.

1
Subtract the units (14 – 7 = 7) and write the 7 in the units 5 2 4
column. Try to subtract the tens (2 – 4). However, because –1 4 7
4 is bigger than 2, you need to decompose one of the
7
hundreds in the 534.

1 1
Reduce the 5 in the hundreds column to 4 and ‘carry’ the 4 2 4
1 hundred over into the tens column (shown here by a 1 4 7
‘1’ beside the 2). This gives 12 in the tens column.
7

1 1
Subtract the tens (12 – 4 = 8) and write the 8 in the tens 4 2 4
column. 1 4 7
8 7

1 1
Finally, subtract the hundreds (4 – 1 = 3) and write 3 in 4 2 4
the hundreds column. 1 4 7
The answer: 387 3 8 7

If you need more practice at pencil and paper subtraction, try

making up some questions, do them and check your answers on
the calculator.

3. Calculating with numbers 41

 Multiplying

CALCULATOR MULTIPLICATION

The calculation 3 × 4 can be thought of as three lots of 4. In other

words, it is 4, then another 4 and then another 4. So, ‘3 times’
can be thought of as repeatedly adding 4 three times. This is
an important link between addition and multiplication – that
multiplication can be thought of as repeated addition.

This idea is neatly demonstrated on the calculator using the adding

constant. For example, set up the calculator constant to ‘add 4’
(this is explained on page 17), enter 0 and then press  three
times. The display goes through the ‘4 times’ table: 4, 8, 12.

Many people have trouble remembering their multiplication

tables (9 × 6 and 8 × 7 are particularly troublesome). There are
suggestions for improving your multiplication skills in Exercise 3.9.

EXERCISE 3.9 Developing multiplication skills with

a calculator

a Suppose you want to practise your 7 times tables. First, set the
calculator constant to ‘add 7’. Enter 0 and then repeatedly press

. Try to guess each value before it is displayed on the screen.
b Without pressing C or any other operation key, enter 0
more and again  once repeatedly. This time you
EXERCI

press should be
better at guessing each value before it appears. Do this
exercise several times until the numbers that form the ‘7
times table’ are well established in your mind.
c Set the calculator constant to ‘times 7’. Enter, say, 5 and guess the
result of 7 × 5. Press  to see if you were correct. Now, without
pressing C or any other operation key, enter, say, 8 and guess the
result of 7 × 8. Again press  to see if you were correct. Do this
exercise until you are getting the correct answer every time.

4
 PICTURING MULTIPLICATION

Building on the idea of repeated addition, young children are

offered a vision of multiplication based on rows of identical
objects.

For example, 12 can be thought of either as three rows of four,

or four rows of three.

Pictures like these help to explain why 3 × 4 = 4 × 3.

MENTAL MULTIPLICATION

There are several useful tricks and tips to improve your

multiplication skills. Try these.

a Multiplying by 10: Multiplying a whole number by 10 is easy –

just add zero. So 6 × 10 = 60, 9 × 10 = 90, 115 × 10 = 1150,
and so on.
b As a useful check on your answer, any multiplication that
includes an even number always gives an answer that is an
even number. Thus 12 × 7 or 9 × 16 will both give an even
answer because 12 and 16 are even. Note that even numbers
are easy to spot since their last digit is always even. So, 12, 38,
and 126 are even, but 37 and 83 are not.

3. Calculating with numbers 43

 c Break it in two: Suppose you are multiplying by 6; this is the
same as multiplying by 3 and then by 2. For example, to find
7 × 6, first find 7 × 3 (which is 21) and then double your
answer (42).
d Picture it: Building on the image of multiplication as a
rectangle made up of a series of identical rows of objects it is
possible to create two or more rectangles whose areas can
be summed to give the answer you require. For example, you
may already know that 30 × 20 = 600. This can be represented
by the first rectangle below, which has an area of 600 (it may
help to think of 20 rows each containing 30 coins, giving
600 coins altogether). Now try a harder one: 30 × 24. You can
extend the rectangle by 4 units to form two rectangles. The
dimensions of the new one are 30 × 4, with an area of 120.
So the answer to 30 × 24 is 600 + 120 = 720.

30 30

20 60 20 600
0

20 × 30 = 120
600 4

30  24  600  120  720

PENCIL AND PAPER MULTIPLICATION

As was the case for pencil and paper addition and subtraction, the
usual written procedure for multiplication is based on working
from right to left, starting with the units, then the tens and then
the hundreds.

4
Example 1
Calculate 54 × 37.
Th H T U
Set out the calculation like this with units under units (U) and
5 4
tens under tens (T). I’ve added the hundreds (H) and thousands
× 3 7
(Th) columns as well as you will need them in this calculation.
Multiplying by 7 units
Multiply the unit digit (4) by 7 (4 × 7 = 28). Write down the
5 4
8 and carry the 2 tens over to the tens column (shown
× 3 7
here by a small ‘2’ below the 3).
2 8

Multiply the tens digit (5) by 7 (5 × 7 = 35). Write down the

5 4
5 in the tens column and carry the 3 hundreds over to the
hundreds column (shown here by a ‘3’ in the previously × 3 7
empty hundred column). This completes the ‘multiplying by 3 52 8
7’ part.
Multiplying by 3 tens
5 4
Note that the 3 is in the tens column so it is actually 3
× 3 7
tens, or 30. The key strategy for multiplying by 30 is to
break it into 3 52 8
parts. First, multiply by 10 by putting a zero in the units column. 0
5 4
Multiply the unit digit (4) by 3 (4 × 3 = 12). Write down the
× 3 7
2 in the tens column and carry the 1 hundred over to
the hundreds column (shown here by a small ‘1’ 3 52 8
1 2 0
below the 3).
5 4
Multiply the tens digit (5) by 3 (5 × 3 = 15). Write down the
× 3 7
5 in the hundreds column and carry the 1 thousand over
to the thousands column (shown here by a ‘1’ in the 3 52 8
previously empty thousands column). 1 51 2 0
This completes the ‘multiplying by 3 tens’ part.
5 4
× 3 7

Finally, add all the sub-totals together (including the 3 52 8

1 51 2 0
small digits).
19 98
The answer: 1998

3. Calculating with numbers 45

 If you need more practice at pencil and paper multiplication, try
making up some questions, do them and check your answers on
the calculator.

Insight: Doubling is troubling

Imagine tearing a large sheet of paper in half. Place one half on top of the other. Then t
Repeat the process to produce eight sheets. Continue in this way until you have made
at anything like, say, the height of a house. However, even that greatly underestimate
130 trips to the Moon and back!

Dividing

So to the fourth and final operation described here – division.

As you will see, just as subtraction is the reverse of addition, so
division is the reverse of multiplication.

CALCULATOR DIVISION

The ‘divide’ key on a calculator is usually written

 , although
sometimes it is shown as / (on a computer, for example). You
will have noticed that if you start off with two whole numbers and
multiply them, you always end up with a whole number answer.
One reason that people find division hard is that this is not true
of division – more often than not, you end up with an answer
that is not a whole number, and this will be displayed in decimal
form. Dealing with non-whole numbers (fractions, decimals and
percentages) is covered in some detail in Chapters 4, 5 and 6.

4
EXERCISE 3.10 ‘Guess and press’ division

Guess the solution to each of the calculations below and check

your answers on a calculator. (Note: they have all been chosen to
produce whole number answers.)

EXERCI
a 12 ÷ 4
b 12 ÷ 3
c 24 ÷ 8
d 48 ÷ 12
e 72 ÷ 9
f 2230 ÷ 10
g 52400 ÷ 100

PICTURING DIVISION

The key to understanding division is the idea of sharing equally.

For example, a child might be asked to share, say, 12 sweets
fairly among 4 people. How can they all get the same number of
sweets?

The answer is to share (or divide) 12 by 4: 12 ÷ 4 = 3

Building on the idea of sharing, young children are offered a

vision of division based on splitting up a collection of objects.
For example, 12 can be shared among 4 people … giving 3
each.

12 objects shared
equally among 4

3. Calculating with numbers 47

 Suppose you are now dividing 14 objects equally among 4 people.
The first 12 objects can be allocated (giving 3 each), but what is
to be done with the remaining 2? There are two choices – either
call these the ‘remainder’ and leave them unshared, or attempt to
split the remainder into fractions. In this example, armed with a
strategic hacksaw, you could halve the two remaining coins, so
each person gets ‘three and a half’ (3½) coins.

MENTAL DIVISION

Here are some tricks and tips to improve your dividing skills.

a Dividing by 10: If a whole number ends in zero, it can be

divided exactly by 10; if it ends in 00, it can be divided by
100. To divide, say, 320 by 10, simply remove the final 0.
So 320 ÷ 10 = 32. To divide, say, 5700 by 100, remove the
final 00. So 5700 ÷ 100 = 57.
b Be aware that all even numbers can be divided by 2 (this is
really what the term ‘even’ means). Thus, 36 is clearly even
(since its final digit is even) and so 36 ÷ 2 = 18.
c Break it in two: The tip suggested for multiplication also
applies to division. For example, suppose you want to divide
224 by 14. Since 14 is 2 × 7, you can first divide by 2
(224 ÷ 2 = 112) and then divide by 7 (112 ÷ 7 = 16).

PENCIL AND PAPER DIVISION

Unlike pencil and paper addition, subtraction and multiplication,

the usual written procedures for division are based on working
from left to right, starting with the hundreds, then the tens and
then the units.

There are two traditional methods of pencil and paper division,

known as ‘short’ and ‘long’ division. Long division is usually
reserved for calculations involving large numbers. However,
for such calculations I would always whip out a calculator so
I propose to avoid this rather cumbersome calculation.

4
 Example 1
Calculate 216 ÷ 9 using short division. HT U
Set out the calculation like this.
9)2 1 6
Start by dividing the 2 by 9. The answer to 2 ÷ 9 is 0
remainder 2. Write the 0 below the line in the hundreds
column and carry the remainder into the next column
(shown as a small 2 beside the 1). Since this represents
2 hundreds, there are now 21 tens in the tens column
(note that this is another example of decomposition). 9)2 21 6
0
Divide the 21 tens by 9. The answer to 21 ÷ 9 is 2
remainder 3. Write the 2 below the line in the tens
column and carry the remainder into the next column
(shown as a small 3 beside the 6). There are now
9)2 21 36
36 units in the units column.
02
Finally, divide the 36 by 9. The answer to 36 ÷ 9 is 4.
Write this below the line in the units column. 9)2 21 36
The answer: 24 0 2 4

If you need practice at pencil and paper division, try making up

questions, do them and check your answers on the calculator. If
you want to select numbers that divide out exactly, start with two
whole numbers (say, 8 and 37) and multiply them on the calculator
(giving 296). Then tackle 296 ÷ 8 using short division, knowing
that the answer will be a whole number.

Insight
There is a so-called rule of arithmetic that says: ‘dividing makes smaller’. Do you t
is stretched ever further when you try dividing by a fraction or by a negative num
(Contd)

3. Calculating with numbers 49

you need to clarify the circumstances under which it is true – for example:

‘Dividing makes smaller’ is true when both numbers are positive and the number that

Knowing what sum to do

What causes some confusion when using the four rules is that
different people use different words to describe them. Most of these
terms are listed in Exercise 3.11. See how many you recognize.

EXERCISE 3.11 The terms used to describe the

four rules

Tick which term refers to which rule.

Term + – × ÷

add
and
difference
EXERCI

divide
from
goes into

how many more

how many less
less

minus
multiply
plus

5
 Term + – × ÷

product
share
sum

subtract
take away
times

With a calculator to hand, actually doing a calculation is usually

straightforward. The real skills are knowing what sum to do and how to
interpret your answer. Here is an illustration.

Example 1

Calculate 5 × 4 + 7.

Solution

The calculator sequence is 547, giving


the

answer,

27.

Example 2

I have four bottles of milk delivered each weekday and seven at the weekend. How
Solution
The calculation is made up of two parts.
Five lots of 4 bottles (one lot for each of the five weekdays) is a multiplication: 5 × 4
and seven at the weekend is an addition: + 7

So the solution, as before, is 5 27 bottles.

4  7, giving
 the answer,

3. Calculating with numbers 51

 Here are some for you to try yourself.

EXERCISE 3.12 Calculations in context

1 A bus sets out from the depot with 27

people. Calculate the number of people on
the bus, if:
a after the first stop, 18 people get on and 9 get off.
b after the second stop, 12 people get on and 21 get off.
c after the third stop, 5 people get on and 16 get off.

2 Over eight minutes, the oven temperature rose

from 21 degrees Celsius to 205 degrees Celsius.
EXERCI

a What was the temperature rise?

b What was the average temperature rise per minute?

3 Denise drinks 15 glasses of water per day. How many

will she have drunk:
a in a week?
b during the month of July?
c in a year?

4 A bottle of wine is said to provide enough for about 7

glasses. If a glass holds about 10 cl, how much does a
bottle hold?

Insight
Sometimes the wording of the question can fool you into using the wrong calculation.

A box of sweets was shared out among 3 children so that they got 18 each. How many

An added complication here is the particular choice of the numbers 18 and 3. The fact

5
 NEGATIVE NUMBERS

You may have noticed that the subtractions which you have been
asked to do so far have been artificially ‘set up’ so that you have
been taking smaller from larger. Basically, subtraction is normally
seen very much in terms of ‘taking away’ objects, and so, if you
start off with three objects, you can’t take more than three away.
However, subtraction doesn’t always involve moving objects
around. Look at these two examples:

€ Although I had only £3 in my bank account, I wrote a cheque

for £5.
€ The temperature was 3°C and it dropped a further five degrees
overnight.

The banking system hasn’t ground to a halt or the thermometer

exploded as a result of these events. We simply solve the problem
by inventing a new set of numbers less than zero. In bank
statements these have the letters O/D (standing for overdrawn)
beside them. Usually, however, we just call them minus, or negative
numbers. So really the number line should be extended to the left
to look like this, so that it can show both negative and positive
numbers.

–5 –4 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 4

Subtracting 5 from 3 can be shown on the number line as follows:

21
Stop 5 4 3 Start

–5 –4 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 4

Starting at the number 3 (the right-hand arrow), we take five steps

to the left, taking us to the answer, –2, said as ‘minus two’.

3. Calculating with numbers 53

 You can check this result by pressing the corresponding key
sequence on your calculator. 3  5 

Now have a go at the practice exercise below, which should help

to consolidate some of the key points of the chapter.

EXERCISE 3.13 Practice exercise

1 Set yourself a few simple ‘sums’ using the four rules of +, –, ×

and ÷. Check your answers using a calculator. Do the ‘sums’
involving + and – again by drawing a number line and moving,
respectively, right or left. Check that you get the same answer
as with the calculator.

2 The place value of the 6 in the number 365 is ten.

What is the place value of the digit 6 in the following numbers?

Number 365 614 496 16 042 1 093 461

Place value ten

3 7°C is three degrees less than 10°C. Find the temperature

which is three degrees less than each of the following.
EXERCI

Temperature °C 10 4 21 –6 –10 0 3 –3
Three degrees less 7

4 Does it matter in what order you add, subtract, multiply and divide
numbers? For example, does 23  15  give the same answer
as 15  23  ?
Use your calculator to explore.

5 a Does the square of an even number always give an

even number?
b Does the square of an odd number always give an
odd number?
c Are all odd numbers prime?
d Are all prime numbers odd?
e Write down the numbers from 1 to 20, and indicate
whether each number is prime, rectangular, odd, even or
square.

5
Answers to exercises for Chapter 3

EXERCISE 3.1

Number 11 7 2 12 8 6 3 1 0
Even     
Odd    

EXERCISE 3.2

Number 9 7 2 12 8 5 3 4 11
Prime     
Rectangular    
Square  

EXERCISE 3.3

a 10, 10, 21, 104

b With addition, the order of the numbers being added doesn’t matter.
c The property holds true for addition and multiplication, but not
for subtraction and division.

EXERCISE 3.4

a 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, … This is the 4 times table.

b 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, … This is the 7 times table.
c 17, 34, 51, 68, 85, … This is the 17 times table.

EXERCISE 3.5

a 28 + 39 = 30 + 40 (– 2 – 1) = 70 – 3 = 67
b 21 + 59 = 20 + 60 (+ 1 – 1) = 80 + 0 = 80
c 19 + 38 + 9 = 20 + 40 + 10 (– 1 – 2 – 1) = 70 – 4 = 66

3. Calculating with numbers 55

 EXERCISE 3.6

a 5, –5, 5, 14
b Unlike addition, the order of the numbers matters with subtraction.

EXERCISE 3.7

a 84, 79, 74, 69, 64, 59, … Note the repeating pattern in the last digit.
b 84, 77, 70, 63, 56, 49, …
215, 208, 201, 194, 187, … There is no obvious pattern here.

EXERCISE 3.8

a 68 – 35 = 68 – 30 – 5 = 38 – 5 = 33
b 98 – 56 = 98 – 50 – 6 = 48 – 6 = 42
c 72 – 55 = 72 – 50 – 5 = 22 – 5 = 17

EXERCISE 3.9

No comments

EXERCISE 3.10

a 12 ÷ 4 = 3
b 12 ÷ 3 = 4 (Note: this matches the answer to part a.)
c 24 ÷ 8 = 3
d 48 ÷ 12 = 4
e 72 ÷ 9 = 8
f 2230 ÷ 10 = 223
g 52400 ÷ 100 = 524

5
 EXERCISE 3.11

Term + – × ÷
add •
and •
difference •
divide •
from •
goes into •
how many more •
how many less •
less •
minus •
multiply •
plus •
product •
share •
sum •
subtract •
take away •
times •

EXERCISE 3.12

1 a 27 + 18 – 9 = 36 people left
b … + 12 – 21 = 27 people left
c … + 5 – 16 = 16 people left

2 a 205 – 21 = 184 degrees

b Average temperature rise per minute = 184 = 23 degrees
8

3 a 7 × 15 = 105 glasses of water in a week

b 31 × 15 = 465 glasses of water during the month of July
c 365 × 15 = 5475 glasses of water in a year.

4 7 × 10 = 70 cl

3. Calculating with numbers 57

 EXERCISE 3.13

1 No comments

2 Number 365 614 496 16 042 1 093 461

Place value ten hundred unit thousand ten

3 Temperature °C 10 4 21 –6 –10 0 3 –3
Three degrees less 7 1 18 –9 –13 –3 0 –6

4 The order doesn’t matter when adding and multiplying but it does for
subtracting and dividing. For example:

Adding 2+3=3+2=5
Multiplying 2×3=3×2=
6 But
Subtracting 2 – 3 = –1, whereas 3 – 2 = 1
Dividing 2 ÷ 3 = 2, whereas 3 ÷ 2 = 1 1
3 2

5 a The square of an even number always gives an even number.

b The square of an odd number always gives an odd number.
c Not all odd numbers are prime (for example, 9, which is 3 × 3).
d All prime numbers are odd with one exception, namely the number 2.

e
Number prime rectangular odd even square
1 • •
2 • •
3 • •
4 • • •
5 • •
6 • •
7 • •
8 • •
9 • • •

5
 10 • •
11 • •
12 • •
13 • •
14 • •
15 • •
16 • • •
17 • •
18 • •
19 • •
20 • •

Note: The number 1 has not been marked as either a prime

number or a rectangular number. It doesn’t comfortably fit
into either category, and can’t be classified in this way.

3. Calculating with numbers 59

 SUMMARY
This chapter started by examining some of the properties of
numbers – whether they are even or odd, prime, rectangular or
square, for example. Next, the so-called ‘four rules’ of add (+),
subtract (–), multiply (×) and divide (÷) were explained on a
calculator, in pictures, using mental arithmetic and, finally, using
pencil and paper. You were shown how to use a ‘number line’ to
represent numbers and simple calculations. The four rules are, of
course, closely connected to each other and these interconnections
were explored with the help of a calculator. Finally, you were
introduced to negative numbers; these can be thought of as the
numbers that appear to the left of zero on the number line.

CHECKLIST

You should have the ability to:

€ identify even, odd, prime, rectangular and square numbers

€ add, subtract, multiply and divide using a calculator, mental
arithmatic and pencil and paper methods.

6
 4
Fractions
In this chapter you will learn:
• how to picture a fraction
• about equivalent fractions
• how to calculate with fractions.

Facing up to fractions

Decimals, now, and fractions. I don’t know, I just didn’t seem

to grasp them … I just found them boring. I couldn’t
concentrate on them at all. They weren’t interesting enough
for me. It wasn’t attractive enough.
Sheila, a friend

Not the most promising start to a chapter on fractions perhaps!

It certainly seems to be the case that, while most people know
roughly what’s going on when the four rules are applied to whole
numbers, sums with fractions can bring the shutters down. The
first thing you should realize is that fractions, decimals and
percentages are all very similar. As you will see over the next
three chapters, they are all slightly different ways of describing
the same thing. What we call fractions – things like 1 , 3 2and
4
so on – should really be called common fractions. In fact these
sorts of fractions are not quite as ‘common’ as they used to be.

4. Fractions 61
 Increasingly the more awkward common fractions, like 3 and 5 ,
8 32
for example, are being replaced by decimal fractions. Decimal
fractions look like 0.3, 0.125, and so on, and are dealt with in
Chapter 5. But first of all, let’s find out what a fraction is and
where it comes from.

What is a fraction?

Sabine and Sam are four. They have never heard of a fraction.
I produced three squares of chocolate and said that they were to be
shared between them. They took one square each. Now what about
that third square? Well, you can be sure that they won’t give it to
me, or their favourite charity. Sabine and Sam may not have heard
of a fraction, but they are quite capable of inventing one when
the occasion arises. As will be explained below, fractions can be
thought of as the ‘broken bits’ that lie between the whole numbers.

Fractions occur quite naturally in division (i.e. sharing) when the

sum doesn’t divide exactly. For example, sharing 7 doughnuts
among 3:

7 doughnuts … into three and 1 left over

shared … lots of 2 … (the remainder)

This can be written as follows:

7/3 = 2 remainder 1

But, as with the square of chocolate, we don’t always want to leave the
remainder ‘unshared’. If the remainder of 1 is also shared out among
the 3 (people) they each get an extra one third, as shown below.

6
 three lots of ‘two and one third’

So, the more complete answer to this division sum

is: 7/3= 2 1 , i.e. 7 divided by 3 gives 2 and a

3

third

It is important to understand why fractions are written as they are.

The fraction 1 really is another way of writing 1 divided by 3,
3
or 1/3. So the top number in a fraction (called the numerator)
is the number of things to be shared out. The bottom number
(the denominator) tells you how many shares there will be.

the top number is the numerator

1
3
the bottom number is the denominator

Exercise 4.1 will help you grasp this important idea.

EXERCISE 4.1 Sharing cheese

A box of processed cheese has six segments. Share two boxes

equally among three people.
EXERCI

a How many segments

will each person get?
b What fraction of a box will
each person receive?
4. Fractions 63
 How to picture a fraction

The common fractions like a half, three quarters and two thirds
are part of everyday language. You should find it helpful to have a
mental picture of a fraction. The picture which is in my mind (and
which is used in most schools when fractions are first introduced)
is to imagine a whole as a complete cake. This can be cut into slices
representing various fractions, like this:

whole
half quarter three quarters
3
1 21 41
4

These sorts of pictures are helpful as a way of understanding

what a fraction is. But if you need to compare fractions or do
calculations with them, then you need more than pictures.
For example:

Is 2 of a cake bigger than 3 of it?

3 4

Insight
A few years ago, working with primary school teacher Louise Graham, we carried out

6
 The outcome of this initiative was remarkable. By the end
of the sequence of lessons, every child in the class seemed
to have a confident understanding of what a fraction was –
something that many pupils never achieve after many
conventional lessons on fractions. We concluded that there
were two key factors to the success of this work. First, their
understanding was based on physicality – they benefited
from seeing, touching and picking up actual physical slices
of circles. Second, they had to think for themselves, and
explain to others, how to make these slices, which we believe
gave them a core understanding of fractions that remained
with them long afterwards.

This initiative has been written up in several journals, including

Mathematics Teaching: ‘DIY fraction pack’, NCETM (National
Centre for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics) support CD
for teachers, 2008, Alan Graham, Louise Graham.

Fitting fractions into the number line

The next step is to understand how fractions fit into the sequence

of numbers that you looked at in Chapter 2. For example:

2 1 is one third of the way between 2 and 3

3
3 7 is seven tenths of the way between 3 and 4
1

The diagram below shows how these fractions fit on the number line.
1 7
23 3
10

0 1 2 3 4 5

4. Fractions 65
 Until fractions are introduced, numbers can be thought of as a set
of points equally spaced on the line (i.e. the whole numbers). But
as your picture of numbers expands, you can see that there are lots
of other points between 1 and 2, between 2 and 3, and so on. How
many are there? Are there any gaps at all on the number line when
the fractions are added? These aren’t questions with easy answers
but you might care to think about them.

Finally, here is a reminder of how the cake diagram and the

number line can help your mental picture of fractions.

Cake diagram ‹ fractions are ‘bits’ of a whole

Number line ‹ fractions fill in the gaps ‘between whole numbers’

And now you’re ready to add and subtract fractions. Well,

nearly… Before that it would be useful to know what equivalent
fractions are.

What are equivalent fractions?

What is the difference between sharing two cakes among four

people or sharing one cake between two people? Well, since
everybody ends up with half a cake, there is no difference in the
share that each person gets. The first lot of people might actually
get 24of a cake but that would seem to be the same as 1 . 2So 2 and
4
1
are fractions which are the same; yet they are different – they
2
have the same value but have different numerals top and bottom.
The word used to describe this is equivalence.

We would say that 2 and 1 are equivalent fractions.

4 2

Exercise 4.2 (b) will give you a chance to spot some more
equivalent fractions. Try it now.

6
EXERCISE 4.2 Finding equivalent fractions

a Mark with an arrow each of these numbers on the number line below:
2 3 , 1 , 4 9 , 11
4 2 10

0 1 2 3 4 5

b Find three fractions equivalent to each of the following (the

first set has been done for you):

EXERCI
FractionEquivalent fractions

3 6 9 12
4 8 ,12 16
1
2
9
10
1
3
6
24
10
20

Adding and subtracting fractions

When adding fractions, it is helpful to think of the slices of cake.

For example:
1
8
1
+ 3
=? 1
8
1
8
+ 8 =
1
8

Here the slices are all the same size (1 each) so we just add them
8
together, like this:
1 3 4
+ =
8 8 8
It is usual to write the answer in the form of the simplest equivalent
fraction, so the answer, 4,8 can be written as 1 .2

4. Fractions 67
 However, what happens when you have to add fractions like the
following?

11
33
2
+ 1= ?
3
1
2

This time the slices of cake aren’t the same size, so we can’t just
add them together. The way out of this problem is to cut both
fractions until all the slices are the same size – like this:

1
1 1
6
6 6
1 1 1
6 6 6
1
6

Now, with all the slices equal to 1, they can be added. The calculation
6
looks like this:
2 1
3+2
4 3 Both fractions are changed to equivalent ‘sixths’
= 6+ 6
7
= 6
1
= 1
6

But why did I choose to subdivide each fraction into slices of 1 ?

6
The reason is that 1 is the easiest fraction that a half and a third will
6
break up into. I could have used slices of 112or 1 but
18
that would
have been unnecessarily complicated. By the way, this process of
breaking fractions up into smaller slices so that they can be added
or subtracted is called ‘finding a common denominator’.

Insight
It’s easy to add and subtract fractions with the same denominators. For example,
55
the
5 answer is 3. Here your fractions are both in the same
‘units’ of fifths. This is like adding 1 metre and 2 metres to

6
get 3 metres – because the measurements share the same units, metres, you sim

However, suppose you are asked to add 1 metre and 2 feet. You can’t do it becau

To summarize, finding the lowest common denominator means

finding the smallest number which both the denominators will
divide into. (Remember that the denominator is the bottom number
in the fraction.) This number then becomes the new denominator.
Thus in the example above, the lowest number that 3 and 2 both
divide into is 6, so 6 is the new denominator. Now try Exercise 4.3
(the first one has been done for you).

EXERCISE 4.3 Adding and subtracting fractions

Complete the table below.

CalculationEquivalent fractionsAnswer

2 1 8 3 11 EXERCI
3
+4 12 +12 12
1 3
2 +4
1 5
3 +6
4 1
5 −2
1 1
5 +4
1 1
4 −5

Multiplying and dividing fractions

How often in your life have you had to multiply or divide two
fractions outside a school mathematics lesson? I suspect that the

4. Fractions 69
 answer is, for most people, never. I therefore don’t intend to devote
much space to this difficult and rather pointless exercise. However,
it is useful to know a few basic facts – for example, a half of a
half is a quarter, and a tenth of a tenth is one hundredth. There
are also a few practical situations (like scaling the ingredients of a
recipe, for example, when you want to produce a smaller or larger
cake than the one in the recipe) where multiplication and division
of very simple fractions may be helpful. This is probably easier to
understand by looking at decimal fractions, so we shall return to
this topic in Chapter 5.

Insight
The earliest known use of fractions is around 5000 years ago
in the Indus Valley, which is part of Pakistan today. Two
thousand years later, the Greeks invented their own form of
fractions based on adding unit fractions (i.e. fractions with
numerators equal1 to11). For example, the fraction 3 could
be expressed as + . Another example is rewriting4 11 as
2 4 12
1
2 + 13 + 121 .

Come forward another 500 years to the Greek philosophers,

the Pythagoreans, who were also very aware of fractions.
They discovered that the square root of two (written today as
2) could not be expressed as a fraction. This ‘unholy’ number
challenged so many of their beliefs about religion and the
natural order of things that they took a vow of secrecy about
it, lest such numbers should come to the attention of a wider
public. The story goes that one member of the brotherhood let
the cat out of the mathematical bag and was promptly put to
death for his indiscretion.

Ratio and proportion

A ratio is a way of describing how something should be shared out

into two or more shares. Typically, it is written as two numbers,
separated by a colon. So, a simple ratio might be written as
something like 2:1 (said as ‘in the ratio two to one’). For example,

7
suppose you wish to share £30 between two people in the ratio 2:1.
This means that one person gets two shares while the other gets
one. The best way of tackling problems like this is to say that there
are three shares altogether. Each one is worth £10 (i.e. £30 ÷ 3), so
one person gets £20 while the other gets £10.

Here is a slightly harder example. Suppose three children are left

£3000 in a will, with the stipulation that it is to be divided in the
ratio 1:2:3. To work out what each child gets, you first add the
numbers (1 + 2 + 3 = 6). So there are six shares altogether. Divide
£3000 by 6 to find that each share is worth £500. So the three
children receive £500 (one share), £1000 (two shares) and £1500
(three shares), respectively.

Proportion crops up when a particular ratio is seen to apply to two

different situations. For example, in the first triangle below, the
longest side is exactly three times as long as the shortest side. Now
imagine that you have enlarged this triangle so that its shape stays
the same but every length has been doubled. What you find is that
the longest side is still three times as long as the shortest side. This
captures the fundamental idea in proportion – when the two ratios
are the same, the two shapes are in proportion.

6
2
3
1

Exercise 4.4: Practice exercise

1 Share the following equally. (The first one has been done for you.)
a 11 cakes among 4 people. Each 2 34
EXERCI

cakes
gets b 17 cakes among 5 people.
cakes
Each gets c 5 cakes among 6
cakes
people. Each gets d 20 cakes
cakes
among 3 people. Each gets
4. Fractions 71
 2 The number 1 consists of 3 thirds. How many thirds are
there in the following numbers?
a 2 d 12
b 4 e 31
3
c 10 f 72
3

3 Write the appropriate

fractions onto the slices of the
clock.

Now add the fractions together.

Check that they add to 1.

4 The fraction 8 can be written more simply as 4. Write the following

10 5
fractions in their simplest form. (One has been done for you.)

4 4 5 12 6 4 8 9 2
Fractio 5 6 10 18 9 16 48 18 22
Simplest form 4
5

5 (i) Change all the fractions below to twelfths. (The first one
has been done for you.)
(ii) Now rank them in order of size, putting a rank of 1
against the largest fraction and 6 against the smallest.
(Again, one has been done for you.)

2327 51
Fractions 3 4 6 12 6 2
8
Fractions as twelfths
1
Rank 3

6 A sum of £600 000 was left to be shared among three

charities, as follows:
Charity A was to receive one
quarter. Charity B was to receive
two thirds. Charity C was to receive
the rest.
Calculate:
a the fraction of the sum that went to Charity C
7
b the amount of money due to each charity.

4. Fractions 73
 Answers to exercises for Chapter 4

EXERCISE 4.1

a Each person gets 6 + 6 = 12 = 4 segments.

3
b Expressed as a fraction, each person gets 4 or, in other words,
2 6
of a box.
3

EXERCISE 4.2
a
1 1 3 9
3 13 24 410

0 1 2 3 4 5

b There are many possible answers here.

FractionEquivalent fractions

3
6 , 9 , 12
4 8 12 16
1
2 , 5 , 12
2
4 10 14
9 18 , 45 , 12
10
20 50 24
1 2 , 20 , 900
3
6 60 1000
6 1 , 2 , 100
26
4 8 300
10 1 , 9 , 12
20 2 18 21

EXERCISE 4.3

CalculationEquivalent fractionsAnswer

2+ 1 8+3 11
3 4 12 14 12
1+ 3 2 + 3 5= 11
2 4 4 4 4 4
1+ 5 2 + 5 7=1 1
3 6 6 6 6 6
4− 1 8 − 5 3
5 2 10 10 10
1+ 1 4 − 5
5 4 9
20 20 20
1− 1 5 − 4
4 5 1
20 20 20

7
 EXERCISE 4.4

1 a 11 cakes among 4 people. Each gets 3 13 cakes

b 17 cakes among 5 people. Each gets 3 25 cakes

c 5 cakes among 6 people. Each gets cakes

2
d 20 cakes among 3 people. Each gets 6 cakes
3
2 a 2 =6 36
d 12 =
b 4 = 1233 1 = 103
3 3
c 10 = 30 e 2 = 23
3
f 73 3
3 The fractions are 1 , 1 , 1 and 1 .
4 6 12 3

These can be rewritten in twelfths and added, as follows.

3 2 1 6 3+2+1+6 12
12 +12 +12 +12 = 12 =12

4 Fractions 8 4 5 12 64892
10 6 10 18 9 16 48 18 22
Simplest form 4 2 1 2 21111
5 3 2 3 3 4 6 2 11

5 Fractions 2 3 2 7 51
3 4 6 12 62
Fractions as twelfths 8 9 4 7 10 6
12 12 12 12 12 12

Rank 3 2 6 4 15
2
6 a Charity C was to receive 1 – (1 + ) = 1 – 11 = 1
4 3 12 12

1
b Charity A was to receive × £600 000 = £150
4
2
000 Charity B was to receive
3 × £600 000 =
1 receive 1 × £600 000
£400 000 Charity C was to
= £50 000

(As a quick check, these amounts of money should add to

£600 000. £150 000 + £400 000 + £50 000 = £600 000.)

4. Fractions 75
 SUMMARY
€ Fractions can be thought of as bits of whole numbers.

€A useful way of representing fractions is as slices of a cake.

€ Equivalent fractions, like 1 and 2 have the same value and

2 4
correspond to the same size of slice of the cake.

€ Adding and subtracting fractions usually involves rewriting

the fractions as equivalent fractions. This means finding a
common denominator (the bottom number in the fraction),
and adding the numerators (the top numbers in the new
fractions).

€ Multiplying and dividing fractions is easiest to understand

when the fractions are written as decimal fractions
(see Chapter 5).

7
 5
Decimals
In this chapter you will learn:
• about the ‘ten-ness’ of numbers
• why we use a decimal point and where we put it
• about the connection between fractions and decimals
• how to calculate with decimals.

Five fingers on each hand (well, four fingers and one thumb) seems
to be a reasonable number to possess. Any fewer and we wouldn’t
be able to play the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ with the same panache; any
more and we’d have a bit of a struggle putting on a pair of gloves.
What I’m really saying, then, is that the reason our number system
is based on the number ten is because humans have counted on
their ten fingers for thousands of years. ‘Decimal’ (from the Latin
deci meaning ten) is really a way of describing the ten-ness of our
counting system. However, it usually refers to decimal fractions.
And there is no shortage of those around us. Just listen to sports
commentators, for example:

… the winning time of 10.84 seconds smashes the world

record by two hundredths of a second.
… the winning scores for the pairs ice skating are as
follows: 5.tf, 5.8, 5.tf, …

Decimal points appear whether we are talking about money (£8.14)

or measurement (2.31 metres) and will appear on a calculator
display at the touch of a button.

4. Fractions 77
Decimal fractions

A decimal fraction is simply another way of writing a common

fraction. In this section you can use your calculator to discover
how fractions and decimals are connected.

EXERCISE 5.1 Deriving decimals from fractions

For each set of questions below:

a write down the answers in fractions
b use your calculator to find the answers in decimals
c complete the blank in the ‘Conclusion’

box. The first one has been started for you.

Key sequenceFractionDecimalConclusion

1
1 2
  0.5
2  4  2

EXERCI
5
5  10 
1
50  100 
The decimal for 1 is 0.
2

1  4 
2  8 
5  20 
25  100 
The decimal for 1 is
4

3  4 
6  8 
75  100 
The decimal for 3 is
4

1  10 
10  100 
The decimal for 1 is
1

As can be discovered from the key sequences above, converting

from fractions to decimal fractions is very straightforward using
a calculator. For example, the fraction 5 can be converted to a
8

5. Decimals 77
 decimal fraction by dividing 5 by 8, i.e. by pressing the following
key sequence:

5  8 

This produces the result 0.625.

In other words, the fraction 5 has the same value as the decimal
8
fraction 0.625. Exercise 5.2 will give you practice at converting
from fractions to decimal fractions.

EXERCISE 5.2 Converting from fractions to

decimal fractions

Now use your calculator to find the decimal values of the

EXERCI

fractions below.

Fraction 1 1 3 1 1 1 2 3 9 1 1 1
2 4 4 10 10 5 5 10 10 20 8 3
Decimal

Insight
Practically every country in the world today has a decimal- based system of currency.
15 February 1971, when the centuries-old tradition of
12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound was changed to 100 new pence t

PICTURING DECIMAL FRACTIONS

You may remember from the previous chapter that fractions could
be helpfully represented using slices of a cake. Since there is such a
close link between fractions and decimal fractions, it follows that
the same helpful pictures apply to decimal fractions.

7
Here are the ‘cakes’ from Chapter 4, but this time with the
corresponding decimal fractions added.

whole
half quarter three quarters
1
1 , or 0.5 1
, or 0.25 3
, or 0.75
2 4 4

Let’s now turn to the way we represent decimal fractions on a

number line. Again, since fractions and decimals are really very
similar, it is not surprising that they can both be represented in the
same way. For example, the fraction 3 and the decimal 0.75 share
4
the same position on the number line. Thus:

3
or 0.75
4

0 1

Having made a connection between fractions and decimals, the

next exercise (called ‘Guess and press’) gets you working just
with decimals. The idea is to write down your guess as to what
the answer will be for each calculation. Then you press the key
sequence on the calculator and see if you are right. The aim of this
exercise is to help you see the connection between decimals and
whole numbers.

5. Decimals 79
 EXERCISE 5.3 Guess and press
CalculationGuessPress

EXERCI

0.5 0.5  1 1
0.5  2

0.25
 4 
0.5  10

4  10

0.1  0.1

0.1  10


What is the point of the decimal point?

If the world contained only whole numbers, we would never need

a decimal point. However, it is helpful to be aware that decimal
numbers are simply an extension of the whole number system.
If we think of a whole number, the rules of place value tell us
what each of these digits represents. Thus, the last digit of a whole
number shows how many units it contains, the second last digit
gives the number of tens and so on. For example, the number
twenty-four is written as:

2 4

two tens and four units

However, when we start to use numbers which include bits of

a whole (i.e. with decimals) some other ‘places’ are needed.
These represent the tenths, hundredths, the thousandths, and
so on. The decimal point is simply a marker to show where the
units (whole numbers) end and the tenths begin. You’ll get a
better idea of this by discovering when the decimal point
appears on your calculator. As you do Exercise 5.4, watch out
for the decimal point …

8
 Insight
Apart from the UK and Ireland, most European countries use a comma rather th
notation because of the influence of electronic calculators and computers, whic

EXERCISE 5.4 Blank checks

Complete the blanks and then check with your calculator.

100
 10   10   10   10 

EXERCI
400
 10   10   10   10 
25
 10   10   10   10 
1 
 100
4 
 100
7 
 1000

You may have got a picture of the decimal point jumping one
place to the left every time you divide by 10. Actually, this is a slightly
misleading picture. Most calculators work on a principle of a ‘floating
decimal point’. This means that the decimal point moves across the
screen to keep its position between the units and the tenths digit.

The key point to remember is that the decimal point is nothing

more than a mark separating the units from the tenths. Below
I’ve written out the more complete set of ‘place values’ extending
beyond hundreds, tens and units into decimals.

Decimal
Hundreds TensUnitspointTenths Hundredths Thousandths

(100) (10) (1) • (0.1) (0.01) (0.001)

5. Decimals 81
 Using the four rules with decimals

If you aren’t sure how to use the four rules of +, –, × and ÷ with
decimal numbers, why don’t you experiment with your calculator?
You will quickly discover that the four rules work in exactly the same
way for decimals as for whole numbers, and for that reason addition
and subtraction of decimals are not spelt out here as a separate topic.

Back in Chapter 4, I suggested that you could learn about

multiplying and dividing fractions by experimenting with your
calculator. Exercise 5.5 is designed to help you do just that.

EXERCISE 5.5 Multiplying with decimal fractions

The first column in this table gives you three multiplication

calculations involving fractions. For each calculation:

a change the fractions to decimals (column 2)

b use your calculator to multiply the decimals (column 3)
c change the decimal answer back to a fraction (column 4).
EXERCI

CalculationCalculation in in fractionsdecimal
Decimal answer
form(use
Fraction
a calculator)
answer

1× 1
0.5 × 0.5 0.25 1
2 2 4

1
2
× 15
3
5
× 12

Now look at columns 1 and 4 and see if you can spot the rule for
multiplying fractions. Think about this for a while before reading on.

Rule for multiplying fractions

To multiply two fractions, say 3 and 52 1, multiply the numerators
(3 × 1, giving 3), then multiply the denominators (5 × 2, giving 10).

The answer in this case is 3 10525

: i.e. ×3210
×1=3×1=3

8
Example 1
Look at the following multiplication:
3 ×2
4 5

As before, these two fractions can be converted into decimal form,

so the calculation can be rewritten as follows.
0.75 × 0.4
Pressing 0.75  0.4  on the calculator gives an answer
of 0.3, or 3 .
1
By way of a check, we could apply the rule for multiplying fractions.
We multiply the two numerators and then the two denominators,
as follows.
3 × 2 = 3×2 = 6
4 5 4×5 20
This can be simplified to 3 (remember from Chapter 4 that 6 and 3
10 20 10
are equivalent fractions).
So, it doesn’t matter whether multiplication is done in fraction form
or decimal form; the result is the same either way.

Example 2
Look at this
multiplication:
4 5
21 × 43
Again, these two fractions can be converted into decimal form,
so the calculation can be rewritten as follows.
2.25 × 4.6
Pressing 2.25  4.6  on the calculator gives an answer of 10.35.
As before, we can check this against the rule for multiplying
fractions. However, the number 2 14 must be rewritten as 94, and 4 35
must be rewritten as 23 .
5
9 × 23 = 9 × 23 = 207
4 5 4×5 20
Finally, just to check that the two methods produce the same result,
this fraction can be converted to decimal form by dividing the
numerator by the denominator.
Pressing 207  20  on the calculator confirms the previous
answer of 10.35.

5. Decimals 83
 Dividing fractions

Dividing fractions is a more painful and less useful skill than

multiplying them and I don’t propose to waste much time on it
here. This topic is one of several ‘casualties’ of the calculator age: it
is no longer relevant and, in my view, is simply not worth learning.
If you are in a situation where you need to divide fractions, a good
strategy is to convert the fractions to decimals and perform the
division on your calculator. Here are two examples.

Example 1
3÷ 2
45
Rewriting as decimal fractions, this gives:
0.75 ÷ 0.4
Using the calculator, this gives an answer of 1.875.
A rule of thumb which used to be taught for dividing fractions is to turn the fractio

3 ÷ 2 = 3 × 5 = 15
45428
If you check on your calculator (by pressing 158), you will
 see
that the fraction 158 has the same value as the earlier answer of 1.875.

Insight
A useful fact to remember about decimal numbers (and indeed about whole numbers)

0.235
The number is written so that the physical size of each digit indicates its unit value in

8
 Example 2
Look at this division:
4 51 ÷ 1 12
Again, these two fractions can be converted into decimal form,
so the calculation can be rewritten as follows:
4.2 ÷ 1.5
Pressing 4.2  1.5  on the calculator gives an answer of 2.8.
As before, we can check this against the method of dividing fractions
described above. However, the number 4 51 must be rewritten as 215
and 1 1 must be rewritten as 3.
2 2
21
5
÷ 23 = 21
5
× 23 = 215 ××32 = 42
15
which can be simplified to 14.
5
Finally, just to check that the two methods produce the same result,
this fraction can be converted to decimal form by dividing the
numerator by the denominator, giving the same answer as before.
14 ÷ 5 = 2.8.

An overview of decimals

As your confidence with decimals grows, you will come to

appreciate how decimal numbers are a natural extension of our
whole number system. What this means in practice is being able to
understand place value. So just as you add up to 10 units and then
swap them for one ten, so you add up to ten hundredths and swap
them for one tenth.

Example
10.01
60.06
30.03
100.10
Ten units are written asTen hundredths are written as 1 in the 1 in the tens col
(Note that this result, 0.10, will be shown simply as 0.1 on the calculator displa

5. Decimals 85
 One obvious property of whole numbers is that the more digits
a number has, the bigger it is. Unfortunately this is not true for
decimal numbers. For example, the number 5.831659 is actually
smaller than, say, 7.2. Don’t be unduly impressed by a long string
of digits. What matters is the position of the decimal point. You
need to see beyond this string of digits and get a sense of how big
the number actually is. For example, it is more useful to know that
5.831659 is between 5 and 6 (or just less than 6) than to quote it
to six decimal places.

Sensibly used, calculators are an excellent means of seeing beyond

the digits of a number. For example, earlier in the chapter, in
Exercise 5.4, you were asked to perform repeated division by
10 and then observe what happened to the decimal point of the
answer. This is an exercise which you can do with any starting
number of your own choice, and the repeated division by 10 can
be more efficiently done by using the calculator’s constant facility.

Exercise 5.6 contains some calculator activities which should help

you to become more confident with decimals.

Insight
A much debated mathematical fact is whether the number
0.9999... is equal to 1. Many students argue that this cannot
be true, since 0.9999... clearly contains numbers that are ‘just
shy of 1’, even though there is an infinite number of nines.
However, here is an argument for showing why these two
numbers are equal.

Write down 1 as a decimal:

3
1
= 0.3333...
3

Multiply both sides by 3:

left-hand side = 3 = 1
3
right-hand side = 0.9999...

So it follows that 0.9999... = 1.

8
 EXERCISE 5.6 Using the constant to investigate decimals

a Set your calculator’s constant to divide by 10. Next enter a

large number into the calculator display and then repeatedly
press
.
At first, watch what happens. Later, try to predict what will happen.
b Set the constant to multiply by 10. Then enter a small decimal
fraction and repeatedly press  . Try to make sense of what is
going on and then try to predict what will happen next.

EXERCI
c Set the constant to add 0.1 and repeatedly press . Without
pressing the ‘Clear’ key, enter a large decimal number and keep
pressing  .
d Set the constant to add 0.01 and repeat what you have just
done in part c.
e Repeat parts c and d but with the constant set for subtraction
in each case.
f With a friend, play the game ‘Guess the number’, the
rules of which are explained at the end of the chapter.

Practical situations involving decimals abound, the most obvious

example being money. Thus £3.46 represents 3 whole pounds,
4 tenths of a pound (i.e. 4 ten-pences) and 6 hundredths of a
pound (i.e. 6 pence).
£3.46

pence
pounds
ten-pences

However, the money representation of decimals can be confusing. We

say £3.46 as ‘three pounds forty-six’, rather than ‘three point four six’,
which is the more correct decimal form. This latter version emphasizes
the decimal place value of each digit. Otherwise you can get into
trouble when dealing with sums of money like one pound and nine
pence, which is often mistakenly written as £1.9, rather than £1.09.

We grow up with decimals and metric units like metres,

centimetres, kilograms, millilitres, and so on all around us.
However, we still have feet and inches, pounds and ounces, and
these units, known as

5. Decimals 87
 imperial units, are the ones that many adults still feel happy with.
These units are explained in some detail in Chapter 7.

The main advantage of metric units is that they are based

entirely on tens, hundreds and thousands; for example, there
are 100 centimetres in a metre, 1000 metres in a kilometre,
1000 millilitres in a litre, and so on. Contrast this with the
old-fashioned 14 pounds in a stone, 12 inches in a foot,
1760 yards in a mile, and so on – really a complete shambles!

EXERCISE 5.7 Practice exercise

1 a Mark the numbers 0.35 and 0.4 on the number line below.

0 0.5 1
b Which of the two numbers, 0.35 or 0.4, is bigger?
2 In the number 0.6, the 6 stands for 6 .
3 Ring the number nearest in size to
0.78. 0.7 70 0.8 80 .08 7
4 Multiply by 10: 5.49 ‹
EXERCI

.
5 Add one tenth: 4.9 ‹ .
6 The number marked with an arrow on the line below
is about .

21 22

7 How many different numbers can you write down between

0.26 and 0.27?
8 Which of these numbers is larger, 24.91257 or 83?

8
 Guess the number
A game for two players, based on the calculator constant.

Player A secretly chooses a number between 1 and 20 – say

12 – and presses 1  12  0. The final 0 is pressed in order to
clear the display. (If your calculator has a ‘double press’ constant,
then press 12   0 instead.)

Player B has to guess which number A has chosen to hide in

the calculator constant by trying different numbers and
pressing  . The aim is for B to guess A’s number in the
fewest possible guesses.

Sample play: B’s attempts to guess the hidden number 12 are

as follows.

B presses Display Comments

16  1.3333333 16 is too big

15  1.25 15 is too big
9  0.75 9 is too small
12  1. 12 is the hidden number

Answers to exercises for Chapter 5

Your calculator should have provided you with most of the

answers to these exercises. However, here are some of the main
points.

5. Decimals 89
 EXERCISE 5.1

Key sequenceFractionDecimalConclusion

1 2 1 0.5
  2
2  4 
0.5
2
5  10  4
0.5
5
50  100 10
0.5 The decimal for 1 is
50 0.
 2
1  4  100
0.25
2  8  1
4 0.25
5  20  2 0.25
8

5
20

25 100
  25 0.25 The decimal for 1 is
100 0.
4
3  4  3
4
0.75
6  8  6
8
0.75

75 100 75
0.75
  100 The decimal for 3 is4 0.

1  10  1
0.1
10

10 100 10
1 0.
  100 0.1 The decimal for 1 is

EXERCISE 5.2

Fraction 1 1 3 1 1 2 3 9 1 1 1
2 4 4 10 5 5 10 10 20 8 3

Decimal 0.5 0.25 0.75 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.9 0.05 0.125 0.33…

9
 EXERCISE 5.3

CalculationPress

0.5 1.
 0.5 
0.5  2 1.

0.25 1.
 4 
0.5  10 5.

4  10 0.4

0.1  0.1 0.2

0.1  10 1.


EXERCISE 5.4

100
 10  10 10  10  0.1  10  0.01

400
 10  40  1   10  0.4  10  0.04

 10 

25 10
  2.5  10  0.25  10  0.025  10 
0.0025

1 100
  0.01

4  100 
0.04

7  1000
 0.007

EXERCISE 5.5

Calculation inCalculation in fractionsdecimal

Decimalform
answer (useFraction
a calculator)
answer

1× 1 1
0.5 × 0.5 0.25

5. Decimals 91
 2 2 4

1× 1
1
0.5 × 0.2 0.1
2 5 10

3× 1
3
0.6 × 0.5 0.3
5 2 10

9
 EXERCISE 5.6
No comments.
EXERCISE 5.7

1 a
0.35 0.4

0 0.5 1

b 0.4 is bigger than 0.35

2 In the number 0.6, the 6 stands for 6 tenths.
3 The number nearest in size to 0.78 is ringed below.
0.7 70 0.8 80 .08 7
4 5.49 ‹ 54.9
5 4.9 ‹ 5.0
6 The arrowed number is about 21.85.

21 22

7 There are infinitely many numbers between 0.26 and 0.27.

For example, I could write out the thousandths: 0.261, 0.262,
0.263, and so on up to 0.269. There are nine of these. But
between, say, 0.262 and 0.263 I could write out nine further
numbers, each expressed as a ten thousandth: 0.2621, 0.2622,
0.2623, and so on. Then I can write out numbers in hundred
thousandths, millionths, and so on. This process can continue
indefinitely or until I fall over with exhaustion.

8 Although 24.91257 contains more digits than 83, its value is

only about 25, so 83 is larger.

5. Decimals 93
 SUMMARY
This chapter should have helped you to make the link between
fractions and decimals. I hope that, after reading it, you now have
a clearer sense of how decimal fractions (i.e. numbers like 0.56,
45.03 and so on) fit into the way the number system is organized.
While digits to the left of the decimal point represent the number
of units, tens, hundreds, and so on, the digits to the right are the
tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and so on.

If you want to explore numbers, the calculator is an excellent place to

start. A variety of calculator activities were suggested which should all
contribute to your understanding of, and confidence with, decimals.

Finally, here is a checklist of the sort of things you should aim to

know about decimals. Note: You will have the opportunity of using
decimals again when we look at units of measure in Chapter 7.

CHECKLIST

You should have the ability to:

€ know that the 4 in the number 6.143 refers to four hundredths

€ mark decimal numbers on the number line

€ arrange decimal numbers in order from smallest to biggest

€ multiply and divide decimal numbers by 10, 100 and 1000

€ know that 3.45 is half way between 3.4 and 3.5

€ know that 0.25 means and 3.75 means 3 3

3
4 4

€ handle units (metres, pounds (£), kilograms) in practical situations

€ know roughly what answer to expect in a calculation

involving decimals.

9
 6
Percentages
In this chapter you will learn:
• why percentages are important
• about the connection between percentages, fractions and decimals
• how to do percentage calculations
• about common difficulties that people experience with percentages.

There are roughly 40 million telephones in Russia and only about two million in Irel

The facts are right but the conclusion is wrong when you realize
that the population of Russia is about 80 times that of Ireland.
In fact about 95 per cent of households in Ireland (that is, 95 out
of every 100 households) have a telephone, whereas only about
30 per cent of Russian households have one.

Failing to compare like with like can result in quite incorrect

conclusions, as this example has shown. Percentages are a useful
device for making fair comparisons. Unfortunately, many people
find percentages difficult. Government reports and educational
researchers have confirmed that among adults there is a
widespread inability to understand percentages. Yet this is despite
the fact that you can’t pick up a newspaper or watch TV without
coming across the words ‘percentage’ and ‘per cent’ over and over. I
opened a daily newspaper at random and quickly picked out the
following two examples.

5. Decimals 95
Read the cuttings below and try to make sense of how the term
‘per cent’ is being used. You will get another chance to read them
at the end of the chapter.

Source: Guardian, 2 February 1995

The reason for the confusion that most people have with percentages
is, I think, quite simple. Many adults and most children don’t really
understand what a percentage is.

What is a percentage?

The first thing you should realize about a percentage is that it is

very similar to a decimal and a fraction. Like them, a percentage is
used to describe a ‘bit’ of a number. But really it is nothing more
than a particular sort of fraction. Think back to Chapter 4

6. Percentages 95
 on fractions, which explained how two or more fractions
could be equivalent. Here are four fractions which are
equivalent:
1
2
, 2
4
, 5
10
, 50
100

These fractions are equivalent because they share the same value of
a half.

Now look at the last of these four fractions, 50 . You might

1
read it as ‘fifty out of a hundred’. A shorthand way of saying
this uses the Latin words per centum meaning ‘out of every
hundred’.

50

S
100
is the same thing as ‘fifty per cent’.

out of a hundred

Well, if a half (i.e. 50 ) is the same as 50 per cent, what do you

1
think a quarter becomes as a percentage?

The answer is 25 because 1 = 25 or 25 per cent.

4

The symbol for ‘per cent’ is %.

So 25% is really another way of writing 25 or 25 per cent.

1

Insight
The symbol for per cent is %, which gives a clue to its meaning. The two zeros signa
a fraction ‘out of 100’. In other words, it is equivalent to a fraction with a denominator

9
Changing a fraction to a percentage

By now you might have worked out for yourself how to change a
fraction to a percentage. If not, you can read the method which I’ve
summarized in two simple steps below. Let us take the example of
converting the fraction 4 to a percentage.
5

Step 1 Change the fraction into its decimal form, so 4

‹ 0.8
(If you find this hard to do in your head, press 5
4  5  on your calculator.)

Step 2 Express the answer in hundredths.

0.8 is the same as 0.80, or 80 hundredths.
So, 4 converts to 80%.
5

You will probably want to practise this, so try Exercise 6.1 now.

EXERCISE 6.1 Changing fractions to percentages

Fill in the blanks in the table below. The first one has been done for you.

FractionDecimal fractionPercentage

1
0.5 50%
EXERCI

2
3
4
7
10
1
5
1
20
3
5
3
8

Like fractions and decimals, percentages can be represented on

the number line. In the percentage number line below, 100%
corresponds to the number 1, 200% to 2 and so on.

6. Percentages 97
 65%

%
0 50 100 150 200

In practice, percentages are rarely represented in the form of

a number line but I’ve included it to stress the similarity with
fractions and decimals.

Why bother with percentages?

The main advantage of percentages is that they are much easier to

compare than fractions. For example, which do you think is bigger,
3
or 7 ? Written like this you can’t really say, because the slices
4 1
of the whole ‘cake’ (quarters and tenths, respectively) are not the
same size. In order to make a proper comparison, the fractions
need to be broken down to the same size of slice, and hundredths
are very convenient. So here goes …

FractionHundredthsPercentage

3
4
100 75%
7
1
100 70%
Clearly 75% is bigger than 70%, so we can now conclude that 3
4
is bigger than 7 .
1

If you look at a practical example you will get a better idea of how
useful percentages are.

Which of the following would represent the bigger price rise?

a Bread is to go up by 6p per loaf.

b A camera is to go up by £5.

9
In one sense the answer could be b, because £5 is more than 6p.
But, since most people buy many more loaves of bread than they
do cameras, we would probably be more concerned if bread went
up by 6p per loaf. The only fair way to compare these price rises is
to acknowledge that 6p is a lot compared with the price of a loaf
of bread, whereas £5 may not be so much compared with the price
of a camera. Using percentages allows us to make comparisons,
taking account of the prices of each item.

So, if we convert these price rises to percentage price rises,

a very different picture emerges. In Exercise 6.2 you are asked
to have a go at calculating these two percentage increases. Don’t
worry if you can’t do it straight away, as the method is explained
below.

Insight
Did you know that newborn babies, both male and female, are composed of abou

EXERCISE 6.2 Calculating percentage increases

Complete the table below. (I’ve taken the original price of bread to
be 60p per loaf and that of the camera to be £100.) EXERCI

Original price (£) Price rise (£) Percentage price rise

Bread 0.60 0.06
Camera 100.00 5.00

SOLUTION

The calculation of the percentage price increases is illustrated as

follows.
Original price (£) Price rise (£) Percentage price rise
0.06
Bread 0.60 0.06 × 100 = 10%
0.06
5
Camera 100.00 5.00 100
× 100 = 5%

6. Percentages 99
 In summary, then, percentage price increases (or decreases) are
calculated as follows.

Percentage price increase = Price increase × 100

Original price

Perhaps you were able to confirm my calculation that bread went

up in price by 10 per cent whereas the camera went up by only
5 per cent in price.

There is, of course, another reason that this increase in the price of
bread will cause more concern than that of the camera. It is that
we tend to buy bread every week, so this price rise is affecting our
shopping bill every week. Cameras, on the other hand, are a very
rare purchase and even a £5 price rise will simply not affect most
people most of the time.

Let’s now look in more detail at how to calculate percentage

increases and reductions.

Insight: Can you turn, say, the number 43 into a percentage?

The answer is no! You cannot turn a single number into a percentage. It must be e

percentage – it is 43
50
or 86%.

Calculating percentage increases and reductions

Where the percentages convert to very simple fractions

(e.g. 100 per cent, 50 per cent, 25 per cent or 10 per cent),
it should be possible to do the calculation in your head. However,
for anything more complicated, I would always use a calculator to
calculate percentage changes. Here, first, are two examples which
could probably be done in your head.

1
 Example 1 A 50% reduction

SOCKS
£2.50 a pair
Now 50% off!!
What is the sale price of a pair of these socks?
Solution

Since 50% is 1,2 there is a reduction of half of £2.50.

This reduction is £2.50

2
= £1.25.

So the new price is £2.50 – £1.25 = £1.25.

Example 2 A 5% increase

In 2008, the average price of a new house in a particular town in the Midlands was
Over the next year, prices of new houses in the town increased by about 5%
Estimate the average price of a new house a year later.
Solution

1 1
Since 5% is the same as, we
20 know that the prices rose byover 20
this period.
182 000
So, the price rise is 20 = £9100

Adding to the original price, we get:

An estimate of the average price of a new house a year later is
£182 000 + £9100 = £191 100.

6. Percentages 101
 So much for calculating simple percentage increases using pencil
and paper only. Unfortunately, most percentage calculations are
more complicated than this and require a calculator. The method
for calculating percentage price changes is explained in the next
two examples.

Example 3 A 6% increase

Following a budget announcement on petrol tax, garages increased

all their pump prices by 6%.

Current petrol prices

What is the new price of unleaded premium petrol at this garage?
Unleaded premium, 97.2p per litre.
Solution
All prices to go up by 6% at midnight
tonight.
An increase of 6% means an increase of six hundredths, or in other
words an increase of 0.06 of the original price. A possible way of
proceeding here is to perform the calculation in two stages. First,
find the price increase and then add it on to the original price. As you
will see shortly, there is a quicker, one-staged method, but you will
find this method easier to follow if you first work through the two
stages explained below.

Stage 1: Find the price increase.

The price increase is 0.06 × 97.2p = 5.832p.
Petrol prices are usually quoted to one decimal place,
so this price increase would be rounded to the nearest
tenth of a penny, i.e. 5.8p.

1
 Stage 2: Add on the price increase.
The new price is 97.2p + 5.8p = 103.0p.
(Notice that the price is written as 103.0p, rather than
103p in order to stress that the price has been stated
accurate to one decimal place.)

As was suggested above, if all you want to find is the new price, this
two-staged method is unnecessarily complex. The whole process can
be reduced to a single stage, by multiplying the old price by 1.06.

It may not be obvious to you where the 1.06 comes from. It is helpful
here to think in terms of hundredths. Before the 6% price increase
we have 100 of the given amount. Adding 6% will increase this to
1
100 + 6 = 106
, which equals 1.06.
100 100

So, the new price is 1.06 × 97.2 = 103.032p.

This rounds to 103.0p, which confirms the previous answer from

the two-staged method.

Example 4 A 15% reduction

This time the socks sale is rather less inviting. As you can see, the reduction now is on

SOCKS
£2.50 a pair
Now 15% off!!
What is the sale price of a pair of these socks?
Solution
Again, since 15% is not easily converted into a convenient fraction,
it makes sense to do this calculation on a calculator. As for Example 3,
(Contd)

6. Percentages 103
 I will first do it the long-winded, two-staged way and then more
directly using the one-staged method.

Stage 1: Find the price decrease.

The price decrease is 0.15 × 2.50 = £0.375.
Stage 2: Subtract the price reduction.
The new price is £2.50 – £0.375 = £2.125.
Rounding to the nearest penny, the new price is £2.13.

As was the case with Example 3, the whole process can be reduced
to a single stage, by multiplying the old price by 0.85. Again, it is
helpful to think in terms of hundredths. Before the 15% price
decrease we have 100 of the given amount. Subtracting 15% will
1
decrease this to 100 − 15 = 85 which equals 0.85.
100 100

So, the new price is 0.85 × £2.50 = £2.125.

After rounding, this confirms the previous answer from the two-
staged method.

You will need some practice at calculating percentage increases and

decreases, so have a go at Exercise 6.3 now.

EXERCISE 6.3 Calculating percentage increases

and decreases

1 A chair normally sells at £42. How much will it cost with a

30% reduction?
EXERCI

2 Check my garage bill.

Anytown Autos
VAT @17.5%
£34.62

1
 3 If you earn £230 per week, which would you
prefer: a rise of 6%, or a rise of £12 per week?
4 Your taxable earnings are £884 this month. How much of this
will you have left after paying 33% in stoppages?

Insight
The managing director of a particular company was being interviewed and claim

Are you impressed?

The problem here is that he has not stated the sort of sums of money involved. If,
only have to make a profit this year of £17 to show a 70% increase in their profit.

Persistent problems with percentages

It will be no surprise to you to be told that a lot of children’s

time in school takes place with one eye shut and the other staring
out of the window. Many children come away from a lesson in
percentages (or whatever) with only a few pieces of the jigsaw
and have to somehow fill in the rest of the picture themselves.
Unfortunately they don’t always get it right. Can you spot where
the child on the following page has gone wrong?

6. Percentages 105
 Now, what were
I can remember the
percentages
teacher saying that
again?
10% was 1 but I can’t
1
remember much else

If 10% is 1
1
then 5% must And 3% is 1
3
be 1
5

The problem is that she has started from a true fact that 10% = 1 and
1
built up a rule which doesn’t work for any other fraction. This is
probably the most common misapprehension about percentages. If
you still have problems with this, the chances are that they can be
traced back to a fuzziness about fractions. You may know that 20%
is more than 5%. However, it is not the case that 1 is more than
2
1
. If you think back to Chapter 4 and the idea of a fraction being a
5
slice of cake, then imagine a cake cut into twenty equal slices. Each
of these slices is a twentieth of the cake and is therefore a very small
slice indeed. One fifth, on the other hand is a large slice.

1
1 = 5%
20 5 = 20%

Shopping during the sales is an opportunity to check out some of

these ideas. For example, 1 off is a better discount than 10% off.
3
Also remember that 40% off the price of something fairly cheap
like a packet of envelopes represents only a small saving in actual
money, whereas the same percentage reduction from, say, the price
of a house represents a huge saving.

Perhaps the most important thing you need to grasp is that

fractions, decimals and percentages are really the same thing.

1
I have found that drawing three number lines one above the other
is a helpful way of emphasizing these connections, as shown below.
The arrows show that 3, 0.6 and 60% have the same value.
5

3
5
Fractions 1 1 3
0 4 2 4 1

0.6
Decimals
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1

60%
Percentages
0 25% 50% 75% 100%

EXERCISE 6.4 Practice exercise

1 Which is bigger, 8% or 1?
8

2 Which is bigger, 15% or 1 ?

1

3 If the rate of inflation drops from 5% to 4%, are

prices: a going up? b coming down? c neither?
4 What is 20% of £80?
EXERCI

5 What is 10% of 20% of £80?

6 Here are some egg prices before and after a price rise.

Old price New price

(per half dozen) (per half dozen)
Small eggs 71 75
Large eggs 84 88

Which has had the greater price increase: small or large eggs?

6. Percentages 107
 7 My garage bill has come to £120.93 and includes VAT at
17.5%. What would the bill be:
a without VAT?
b if VAT were rated at 25% instead of 17.5%?

8 Why do children’s sweets tend to suffer greater inflation

than most of the other things adults buy?

9 Study the newspaper cuttings on page 96 and then answer

the following questions.
a From the first cutting, the final sentence ends by stating
that ‘typical housing costs … would pass the £4000 mark
in October’. Use the information from the rest of the
article to check that this figure is correct.
b Turning to the second article on the same page, estimate
the number of residents in Campodimele who are aged
between 75 and 99 years old.

Answers to exercises for Chapter 6

EXERCISE 6.1

Fraction Decimal fraction Percentage

21 0.5 50%

4
3
0.75 75%

10
7
0.7 70%

5
1
0.2 20%

20
1
0.05 5%

5
3
0.6 60%

8
3
0.375 37 21%

1
 EXERCISE 6.2

The solution is in the text.

EXERCISE 6.3

1 The reduction in price is 30% or 3 . Three tenths of £42 can be found

1
on your calculator by pressing
either
3  10  42 
or
0.3  42 
both of which give the correct answer £12.60.
So the reduced price is £42 – £12.60 or £29.40.
(Note: A quicker way of doing this is to say that a 30% reduction
will bring the price down to 70% of the old price. On the
calculator you would press
0.7  42  , which gives the answer £29.40.)

2 The VAT is incorrect. Using a calculator, press 186.40  0.175 

to give the answer £32.62. The addition was also incorrect, so
I’ve been overcharged by £10.
(Note: the direct method for checking the final bill is to press
186.40  1.175  .)

3 6% of £230 is £13.80, which is a bigger rise than £12.

4 I will have 67% of £884 left, which is £592.28.

EXERCISE 6.4

1
1 is 12 1 % and so is bigger than 8%.
8
Note: You can use your calculator to convert 1 to a percentage by
8
pressing 1  8  100  .
1
2 is approximately equal to 6.7%, so 15% is bigger than 1 .
15 15

6. Percentages 109
 3 The annual rate of inflation measures how much average prices
have risen over a year. If that rate is a positive number (such as 4%
or 5%, for example), this means that prices have risen. So, even
though
the rate of inflation has fallen, the current rate of 4% shows that
prices are still rising, but not quite as quickly as they were over
the previous year.

4 20% is 1. One fifth of £80 is £80 = £16.

5 5

5 10% of 20% is one tenth of 20%, which is

2%. 2% of £80 = £80 × 2 = £1.60
1

6 The solution is summarized in the table below.

Old price (p) New price (p)

PricePercentage increase increase(round
(p)decimal place)

Small
eggs 71 75 4p 4 × 100 = 5.6%
7

Large
eggs 84 88 4p 4 × 100 = 4.8%
8

So, although both eggs have seen the same actual price rise (4p in
each case), the small eggs have shown the greater percentage rise.

7 a This calculation is slightly harder than the others, as it involves

working backwards after the percentage increase has been
added. The story line of the solution is as follows: Let the bill
without VAT be thought of as 100% and the bill with VAT
(costing £120.93) as 117.5%. So we must divide the total bill by
117.5 and then multiply by 100.

Now, £120.93 × 100 = 102.92 (rounded to the nearest penny).

1
So the net bill (i.e. not including the VAT) is £102.92.

1
 b To calculate the bill inclusive of VAT at 25%, multiply the net bill by
1.25.
£102.92 × 1.25 = £128.65.

8 When percentage increases are applied to the price of goods,

it is generally the case that fractions of pence get rounded up.
For example, if a bar of chocolate costing 36p is subjected to a
10%
increase, the true price should be 39.6p. However, as shopkeepers
cannot charge 0.6 of a penny, this price is likely to be rounded up to
40p. This represents a loss of 0.4p to the customer and a loss of 0.4p
represents a much greater proportion of something costing 40p than
of an item costing, say, £40. Since the things that children buy (comics,
sweets, etc.) tend to be cheap, children lose out from these rounding
losses more than adults.

9 a Earlier in the article, the claim was made that housing costs would
soon be 25 per cent higher than they were a year ago. To check an
increase of 25% from a starting value of £3200, press the
following on your calculator:
1.25  3200 
This confirms the result of £4000 mentioned in the last sentence.
Alternatively, you might be able to do the calculation in your head,
as follows.
25% is one quarter, and one quarter of £3200 is £800.
Adding you get £3200 + £800 = £4000.

Finally, however, you also need to check that the 25% increase
related to the full one year period for which it applied. Since the
comments were made in February 1995, the period from (the
previous) April 1994 to (the next) October 1995 covers more than
one full year (actually about 18 months), so the claim does seem
justified.

b This article talks about ‘more than 10 per cent’ of 900 people.
Since 10% = 1 , one tenth of 900 is 90. So there are more than
1
90 residents aged between 75 and 99 years old.

6. Percentages 111
 SUMMARY
You should now be able to:

€ realize that converting to percentages makes it easier to

compare fractions

€ link percentages to common and decimal fractions

€ convert from percentages to (simple) fractions and decimals

and vice versa, e.g. 75% = 3 = 0.75
4

€ express something as a percentage of something else,

e.g. 6 is 25% of 24

€ calculate percentage increases and decreases.

1
 7
Measuring
In this chapter you will learn:
• about measuring dimensions and units
• how to round numbers
• how to convert units of measure.

It is said of frogs that they sort all other animals they meet into just three categorie

If it is small, they eat it.

If it is large, they run away from it.
And if it is about their own size, they mate with it.

I think it’s fair to say that, in general, humans are slightly more
discriminating! Any activity which involves making judgements
about the size of things can be called measuring. Although frogs
may not be engaged in highly sophisticated measuring here,
they are trying to understand the bigness or smallness of things
around them.

What do we measure?

Most people tend to think of measuring as using weighing scales

or a tape measure. But what sort of thing do these devices tell us

7. Measuring 113
 about? Weighing scales tell us about weight and a tape measure
about length. These types of measurement are called dimensions.

Dimensions of measure are measured in certain measuring units.

For example, weight may be measured in kilograms, grams,
ounces, pounds, and so on, while length may be measured in
centimetres, metres, inches, miles, and so on.

There are, of course, many dimensions other than length and

weight which we need to measure, for example:

temperature, time, area, capacity, angle, volume, speed, …

Exercise 7.1 will give you a chance to think about these dimensions
and also about the units in which they are usually measured.

EXERCISE 7.1 Dimensions and units

Complete the table (the first two have been done for you).

Question Dimension of measure

Likely units of measure

How heavy is your laundry? weight kg or lb

EXERCI

How long is the curtain rail? length cm or in

How hot is the oven?
How far is it to London?
How fast can you run?
How long does it take to cook?
How much does the jug hold?
How big is your kitchen?
How big is the field?

As you can see, I have included two lots of units in the examples
above because both are in common usage. They are known as the
metric system of units and the imperial system of units. Because
many people are confused by these various units of measure, they
are explained in some detail later in the chapter.

11
Insight: Start at zero
Suppose you are asked to estimate the time taken for some
short event to take place – say the interval, in seconds,
between a lightning flash and the ensuing rumble of thunder.
If you start counting 1, 2, 3, … you are actually chopping off
the first second. As the diagram below shows, you should
start counting from zero.
The first second runs from 0 to 1.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time (seconds)

Why do we measure?

The reason we measure is that, quite simply, we live in a more

complex world than a frog. Although words like ‘large’ and ‘small’
are sometimes good enough for some particular purposes (‘Give
me some of the large apples’, ‘I’d like a small helping’, and so on),
often we need to be more precise. Here is an example where the
word ‘large’ proved inadequate during a national rail strike.

A very large proportion of the staff didn’t show up for work.

Union spokesperson

A large proportion of the staff showed up for work.

Management spokesperson

The use of the word ‘large’ in these quotations is highly

dubious. How large would the proportion have to be for you
to consider it ‘large’ – 10%, 25%, or perhaps 70%? … It is
interesting that both sides in the dispute have been
deliberately

7. Measuring 115
 vague about the exact figures and prefer instead to give a general
impression.

Sometimes, however, a general impression is simply not good

enough, and something more precise is needed. For example, you
may have seen signs on the motorway advising drivers of ‘large’
vehicles to stop at the next emergency phone and contact the
police. If you are driving a lorry, how would you know whether
this referred to you? Rest assured that the small print below the
sign goes on to explain that:

Large means 11' 00” (3.3 m) wide or over

The reason that we tend to measure with numbers is to help us

make decisions and comparisons fairly and accurately. Careful
measuring helps us bake ‘the perfect cake’ every time, lay well-
fitting carpets with a minimum of waste, check that the children’s
shoes don’t pinch and so on. In Exercise 7.2 you are asked to think
about the measuring dimensions involved in these sorts of
everyday tasks.

EXERCISE 7.2 Being aware of the dimensions of

measure

Here is a list of eight common dimensions of measure:

Length (L), Area (A), Volume (V), Weight (W),

Time (T), Temperature (T°), Capacity (C) and Speed (S).
EXERCI

Make a note of which of them are likely to be important in the

following everyday activities. (Note: there may be several
dimensions involved in each activity.)

Everyday activities
€ Baking a cake
€ Buying and laying a carpet
€ Checking the children’s shoes
€ Setting out on a journey in good time

11
 Insight: Whose foot?
Early measures of length were based on using parts of the body as standard un

€ the inch (the thickness of a man’s thumb)

€ the foot (well, this one is obvious)
€ the yard (the length of a man’s stride)

One problem with this approach was standardization of the units – not everyon

How do we measure?

Measuring is basically a way of describing things. Descriptions

can come in two basic forms. First, there are descriptions of
quality and these tend to be made with words. For example,
you may describe your various friends as happy, carefree,
moody, thoughtful, sensitive, and so on. These are not the sorts
of descriptions that easily lend themselves to being reduced to
numbers. Descriptions of quantity, on the other hand, do involve
numbers. For example, Ann is 1.59 m tall, Donal is 73 years
old, Chris has 5 children, and so on. When people talk about
measurement, they are usually thinking about measurement based
on numbers, but not always.

Some measuring seems to fall between quality and quantity. For

example, you might describe something as being large or small, fast
or slow, chilly or warm. These are ways of indicating whereabouts
on some sort of scale (respectively they refer to size, speed and
temperature). Yet, although they make no mention of numbers,
these descriptions are a sort of measure. Such words can be ranked
into a meaningful order and they then produce what is called an
ordering scale. On the other hand, words which describe, say, an
emotion or a colour do not normally relate to a useful scale. Thus,
you can’t say that ‘curious’ is bigger than ‘excited’ or that ‘red’ is

7. Measuring 117
 more than ‘blue’. Such words are simply descriptions. Exercise 7.3
will give you practice at using an ordering scale.

EXERCISE 7.3 Using an ordering scale

Here are five words used in describing how likely something

is to happen:

likely, impossible, doubtful, certain, highly improbable

These descriptive words can be written in order of likelihood, from

least likely to most likely, thus:

impossible, highly improbable, doubtful, likely, certain

least likely
EXERCI

most likely

Now, here are some for you to do.

Rank the following sets of words into useful ordering scales.

1 These five words are used in describing ways of travelling on

foot: jog, stop, sprint, walk, amble

2 These are the developmental stages that babies

usually go through:
walk, lie, sit up, stand, roll over

3 These words are often written in sequence on an electric

iron: wool, linen, silk, cotton, rayon

To summarize, then, measuring can take the following three basic

forms:

€ words alone
€ words which can be ranked in order
€ numbers.

11
The types of measuring scale which these three approaches use are:

€ words
€ ordering scale
€ number scale.

Although all three types of scale are helpful in providing an interesting

variety of descriptions and comparisons, it is the third of these,
measuring with numbers, which is the most important in mathematics.

Insight
Until the early 1990s, temperatures in the UK (for example,
weather and cooking temperatures) tended to be given using the
Fahrenheit scale. This scale was named after Daniel Fahrenheit
(1686–1736), who proposed it in 1724. On the Fahrenheit scale,
the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (°F) and the
boiling point is 212°F (both measured at standard atmospheric
pressure). This gives a scale of 212 – 32 = 180 units.

Fahrenheit’s reason for choosing this odd starting point of

32º to represent the freezing point of water is to do with
the coldest temperature that he was ever able to measure
in his home town of Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland), which
he defined as zero degrees. Based on his scale, the freezing
point of water turned out to be 32 degrees warmer than this.
Today, this scale has largely been replaced by the Celsius
scale. On the Celsius scale, the freezing point of water is
0 degrees Celsius (0°C) and the boiling point is 100°C. This
gives a scale of 100 – 0 = 100 units, which gives rise to its
alternative name, the Centigrade (literally, 100 unit) scale.

How accurately should we measure?

The accuracy with which we measure depends entirely on what

and why we are measuring. A brain surgeon and a tree surgeon
have different needs for accuracy when sawing up their respective

7. Measuring 119
 ‘patients’. A nurse weighing out drugs will exercise greater care and
precision than a greengrocer weighing out potatoes. A calculator
can sometimes give a false sense of the accuracy of an answer. As
the example below shows, it may give a result showing eight-figure
accuracy but the numbers on which the calculation was performed
may be only approximate.

Suppose you wish to replace the fence in your garden. The length
of fencing needed is, say, 21 m and each panel of fencing is 1.8 m
in length. Pressing  1.  on your calculator will probably
21 8
produce the answer 11.666666 (for reasons that will be explained
shortly, on some calculators the answer will be shown as 11.666667).

For this sort of calculation, it is plainly silly to give an answer to

eight figures. If the last six digits of your answer are either dubious
or unnecessary, then dispose of them. However, you have to be a
bit careful how you do this. Numbers can be shortened so that you
finish with a suitable number of digits (say three). This is called
giving your answer ‘correct to three significant figures’ (or ‘to 3
sig. figs.’, for short). With the above example, calculating the
number of
panels of fencing requires that you buy a whole number of panels,
so the answer will be given correct to two significant figures. In this
case 11.666666 would be rounded up to 12 panels. Note: You would
still need 12 panels even if the answer on the calculator was
11.333333!

This process of simplifying unnecessarily accurate measurements

to a near approximation is called rounding. Some examples are
given in the table below.

4.18345926
MeasurementRounded to 3 4.18
sig. figs.
371.41429 371
0.0142419 0.0142
74312.692 74300
11.6666 11.7

Notice that the third and fourth examples in this table have
produced answers which contain not three but five figures.

12
However, the two zeros at the beginning of 0.0142 and the two
zeros at the end of 74300 are not considered to be significant
figures. They are only there to give the overall magnitude of
the number. It makes sense to do this as otherwise the number
74312.692 would be rounded to 743, which is clearly nonsense!

The last example in the above table, 11.6666, is different from the
others in the following respect. As you can see, its third digit has been
rounded up from a 6 to a 7. The clue to why it has been rounded up
can be found by looking at the fourth digit in the original number: the
6. Since it is bigger than 5, the 6 in the tenths column is rounded up to
a 7. And this is the reason that some calculators produce the answer
11.666667 for the fence panel calculation. Such calculators have been
designed so that they round up the final digit displayed when the next
digit would have been a 5 or greater. In order to be able to do this,
these calculators need to process their calculations to greater accuracy
than the eight figures that they display, which accounts for why they
tend to be slightly more expensive than the calculators which don’t
round. Exercise 7.4 gives you practice at rounding.

By the way, don’t worry if this explanation of rounding sounds

confusing – it is easier to do than to read about!

EXERCISE 7.4 Rounding practice

Round the following numbers to four significant figures.

a 4124.7841
NumberAnswer to 4 sig. figs. 4125
b 38.4163
c 291.7412
d 39042.611
EXERCI

e 39048.619
f 38.4131
g 446.982
h 0.142937
i 1317.699
j 3050.1491

7. Measuring 121
 There are many practical situations where careful measurement
is essential – for example, dress-making, carpentry, weighing out
parcels to calculate the cost of postage, and so on. However, in
other situations, an estimate based on experience and common
sense is often good enough. For example, when returfing a lawn,
you may wish to measure its area fairly accurately using a tape
measure, but if you decide to seed it, simply pacing it out to
estimate the area may be sufficient. Estimation is a skill which
greatly improves with practice. I sometimes find it helpful to
imagine everyday objects of a standard size to help me make an
estimate. For example:

EstimateHelpful image

estimating height or a door is roughly 2 metres high

distance a running track is 400 metres around
estimating capacity/ a standard milk bottle holds one pint
volume
estimating weight a bag of sugar weighs 1 kg
estimating air typical winter temperatures 0°C–10°C
temperature summer temperatures 20°C–30°C
spring/autumn temperatures 10°C–20°C

And now, as promised earlier in the chapter, we turn to the units

that are used in measuring.

Insight
The main advantage of metric units of measure is that they are standardized – so
the equator to the north pole). Since 1983, a more precise definition has been use

by light in free space in 1of299a 792

second.
458
Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I’ll just get out my school ruler and check that last digit!

12
Imperial and metric units

Until about 1970, measurement in the UK was largely done

with imperial units. Since then, however, the British population
has at last owned up to the fact that they have the same number
of fingers and thumbs as the rest of the world, and have ‘gone
decimal’. The decimalization of money in 1971 was carried out
quickly and effectively. As a result, most people mastered the
new coinage within days. It was also intended that the familiar
imperial units of length, weight and capacity be phased out within
a few years. This change, called metrication, was to have swept
away the most familiar of the measuring units – feet, inches, yards,
pounds, stones, pints, gallons, and so on – in favour of metres,
kilograms, litres and the like. Indeed, during the 1970s, many
children learnt only the metric units in school on the assumption
that the old imperial units would soon be six feet (sorry, 1.83
metres) under. Unfortunately, however, the changeover was
so half-hearted that, at the present time of writing, we are still
regularly using both systems (and having fun trying to convert
from one to the other!). Since the 1980s, children have been
taught both systems in school.

Conversions between metric and imperial units tend to involve

rather awkward numbers. For example, there are ‘about’
39.370078 inches in one metre! Not surprisingly, a number of
half-baked approximations have appeared like the metric yard,
the metric foot and even the metric brick. Have a look at the
table below and you will see just how ‘approximate’ some of the
approximations are.

Unit‘True’ value

Metric yard = 39 in 1 m = 39.370078 in

Metric inch = 2 cm 1 in = 2.54 cm
Metric foot = 30 cm 1 ft = 30.48 cm
Metric mile = 1500 m 1 mile = 1609.344
m

7. Measuring 123
 I have summarized most of the metric and imperial units that you
are likely to need later in the chapter. I will explain how to use it
by focusing on the most basic measure of all – length.

LENGTH

Metric units
10
millimetre 100 1000
centimetre metre kilometre
(mm) (cm) (m) (km)

Imperial units
12
inch 3 1760
foot yard mile
(in) (ft) (yd)

The numbers above the arrows tell you how to convert from one
unit to another. Thus, there are 10 mm in 1 cm, 100 cm in 1 m,
and so on. If you want to know how many mm are in 1 m, then
multiply the two numbers 10 and 100 (i.e. there are 1000 mm in
1 m). It will help you understand and remember the metric units
when you realize that:

€ for each dimension there is a basic unit – thebasic unit for

length is the metre
€ all the other units get their names from the basic unit:
e.g. because centi- means one hundredth ( 1 ), then a
1
centimetre is one hundredth of a metre.

The following table of metric prefixes will help you to work out the
others.

PrefixMeaning

Milli- one thousandth ( 1 )

1
Centi- one hundredth ( 1 )
1
Deci- one tenth ( 1 )
1
Kilo- one thousand (1000)

12
Converting between metric and imperial units is a little trickier. If
you don’t need to be too accurate, it is helpful to remember that a
12-inch ruler is almost exactly 30 cm long. Dividing 30 by 12, it
follows that one inch is roughly equal to 2.5 cm. When you need to
be more accurate, use the conversion 1 inch = 2.54 cm, and also use
a calculator!

AREA

Length is a one-dimensional (1-D) measurement because it involves

only one direction. Problems involving surfaces (sizes of paper,
carpets, curtain material, lawns, …) are two-dimensional (2-D).
Sometimes we describe area simply by stating the length and the
breadth. For example, curtain material is bought by the metre
(length) but we also need to know that the roll is 1 m 20 cm wide.
If you are buying paint, on the other hand, the instructions on the
tin may say something like: ‘contents sufficient to cover 35 m2’.
The unit described as a ‘m2’, or a ‘square metre’, is the basic metric
unit of area. It means exactly what it says. One m2 is the area of a
square, 1 m by 1 m.

The area of a 1 m × 1 m square is 1 m

equal to 1 m2.

There should be enough paint in the

tin to cover 35 of such squares. 1m

Similarly, 1 ft2 (1 square foot) is the area of a square 1 ft by 1 ft,

and so on for the various other units of area. However, it’s all not
quite as easy as it sounds. Have a go at Exercise 7.5 now and see if
you can avoid the traps that people often fall into.

7. Measuring 125
 EXERCISE 7.5 Area traps

a How many square feet (ft2) are there in one square yard (yd2)?
b How many cm2 are there in 6m
EXERCI

one m2?
c What is the area of this rectangle?
d If you double the dimensions of 4m
this rectangle (i.e. double the
length and double the breadth),
what do you do to the area?

VOLUME

If you ask most people about the word ‘volume’, they will tell you
that it is the knob on the TV set which makes it go loud and quiet.
‘Volume’, as used in mathematics, is rather different. It describes
an amount of space in three dimensions (3-D). If you think of
a box, its volume will depend on the three dimensions: length,
breadth and height.

Unlike the words ‘length’ and ‘area’, ‘volume’ is not a word in very
common everyday usage. We tend, instead, to use terms like:

How big is the brick? or

What is the size of the box?

However, the trouble with words like ‘big’ and ‘size’ is that they
don’t necessarily refer to volume. In fact they can be called upon
to describe any of a number of dimensions. For example, the size
of a pencil might mean its length. The size of a piece of paper
might mean its area. The size of a bag of sugar might even mean
its weight, and so on.

People who work in the building trade become skilled at estimating

amounts of earth and concrete. They usually measure these
volumes in so many ‘cubes’. A ‘cube’ usually refers to a cubic metre
or a cubic foot. A cubic metre is the amount of space taken up by a
cube measuring 1 m by 1 m by 1 m.

12
 1m

1m

1m

Similarly a cubic centimetre (cc or cm3) is the amount of space

taken up by a 1 cm cube.
1 cm

1 cm

1 cm

Another measure which deals with three dimensions is capacity.

The difference between capacity and volume is that capacity
describes a container and is a measure to show how much the
vessel holds. For example, we talk about the capacity of a saucepan,
bucket, bottle, etc. The units of capacity, which are included in
the table on page 128, are normally only used with liquids.

Have a look now at the table overleaf, which shows some of the
most common metric and imperial units for length, area, volume,
capacity and weight.

Insight
My cousin recently purchased his dream car – a BMW. His only disappointment w
out that the on-board ‘i-Drive’ computer was set to record fuel consumption in m
respectable 37 mpg (note that 1 US gallon = 0.833 imperial gallons, approximatel

7. Measuring 127
 CONVERTING BETWEEN UNITS

Metric units

10 100 1000
Length millimetre centimetre metre kilometre
(mm) (cm) (m) (km)

10 000 10 000
Area centimetre2 metre2 hectare
(cm2) (m2)

1 000 000
Volume centimetre3 metre3
(cm3) (m3)

1000
Capacity millilitre (ml) litre (l)

1000 1000
Weight gram (g) kilogram (kg) tonne

Imperial units

12 3 1760
Length inch (in) foot (ft) yard (yd) mile

144 9 4840 640

Area inch2 foot2 yard2 acre square mile
(in2) (ft2) (yd2)

1728
Volume in3 27
ft3 yd3

20
Capacity fluid ounce 2 4
pint quart gallon

16 14 8 20
Weight ounce pound stone hundredweight ton
(oz) (lb) (cwt)

You will probably need practice at using these tables, so do

12
Exercise 7.6 now.

7. Measuring 129
 EXERCISE 7.6 Getting familiar with the units of
measure

a How many millimetres are there in a metre?

EXERCI
b How many centimetres are there in a kilometre?
c How many grams are there in a tonne?
d How many inches are there in a mile?
e How many square inches are there in a square yard?
f How many ounces are there in a ton?

Unfortunately it isn’t enough to be able to convert units within the

metric or the imperial system separately. Sometimes it is necessary
to convert between the two. The table below shows some of the
most common conversions between metric and imperial units.
(Note: km/h means kilometres per hour.)

Accurate conversionRough ‘n’ ready conversion

Length 1 m = 39.37 in 1 metre is just over a yard

(a very long stride)
1 in = 2.54 cm 1 inch = 21 cm
2

3
Capacity 1 litre = 1.76 pints 1 litre = 1 pints (a large bottle
4
of orange squash)
1 gallon = 4.54 litres 1 gallon = 41 litres
2

Weight 1 kg = 2.2 pounds 1 kg = just over 2 lb (a bag of

sugar)
1 pound = 0.454 kg 1 lb = just under 1 kilogram
2
= 454 g

Speed 100 km/h = 62.1 mph 8 km/h = 5 mph

100 mph = 161 km/h

Again, it would be a good idea to practise some of these

conversions now, so have a go at Exercise 7.7.

13
 EXERCISE 7.7 Practice exercise

Use the tables on pages 128 and 129 (and a calculator

where appropriate) to answer the following:

a Which of these would be a reasonable weight for an adult?

60 kg, 600 kg, 6 kg
EXERCI

b Is it better value to buy a 25 kg bag of potatoes or a 56 lb bag

for the same money?
c What is the height of your kitchen ceiling from the floor, in metres?
d Some French roads have 90 km/h speed limits. What is
this roughly in mph?
e Is 1 litre of beer more or less than a pint?
2
f If we bought milk by the 1 litre, how many bottles would you
2
have to buy to have roughly 7 pints?

As a footnote, I feel that I should raise the issue of my use of the

word ‘weight’ throughout this chapter. Strictly speaking, I should
talk about ‘mass’ rather than weight. The weight of an object is
a measure of the force of gravity acting on it and this will vary
depending on where the object is in relation to the Earth. Mass is
the ‘amount of matter’ which the object contains and, wherever its
position, this will not vary. Most scientists feel that this distinction
is critical but, provided your mathematics is conducted mostly on
the Earth’s surface, I wouldn’t let it worry you too much!

Answers to exercises for Chapter 7

EXERCISE 7.1

Question Dimension of measure

Likely units of measure

How heavy is your laundry? weight kg or lb

How long is the curtain rail? length cm or in
How hot is the oven? temperature degrees (°C or °F)

7. Measuring 131
 How far is it to London? length/distance km or miles
How fast can you run? speed km/h or mph
How long does it take to cook? time minutes
How much does the jug hold? capacity cm3, pint or fl oz
How big is your kitchen? volume m3 or ft3
How big is the field? area hectare or acre

EXERCISE 7.2

Everyday activitiesMeasuring dimensions

Baking a cake W; T; T°; C

Buying and laying a carpet L; A
Checking the children’s shoes L
Setting out on a journey in good time L; T;
S

EXERCISE 7.3

stop, amble, walk, jog, sprint

lie, roll over, sit up, stand, walk
rayon, silk, wool, cotton, linen

EXERCISE 7.4

Number Answer to 4 sig. figs.

a 4124.7841 4125
b 38.4163 38.42
c 291.7412 291.7
d 39042.611 39040
e 39048.619 39050
f 38.4131 38.41
g 446.982 447.0
h 0.142937 0.1429
i 1317.699 1318
j 3050.1491 3050

13
 EXERCISE 7.5

a 9 ft2 = 1 yd2
b 10 000 cm2 = 1 m2
c Area = 6 m × 4 m = 24 m2
d Doubling the length and the breadth makes the area four
times as big.

EXERCISE 7.6

a Number of millimetres in a metre = 10 × 100 = 1000

b Number of centimetres in a kilometre = 100 × 1000 = 100 000
c Number of grams in a tonne = 1000 × 1000 = 1 000 000
d Number of inches in a mile = 12 × 3 × 1760 = 63 360
e Number of square inches in a square yard = 144 × 9 = 1296
f Number of ounces in a ton = 16 × 14 × 8 × 20 = 35 840.

EXERCISE 7.7

a 60 kg would be a reasonable weight for an adult.

b A 25 kg bag weighs 25 × 2.2 = 55 lb. So, buying a 56 lb bag for
the same money is a slightly better deal.
c A typical height of a kitchen ceiling from the floor is roughly 2 1 to
2
3 m.
d 90 × 5 ÷ 8 = 56 mph, roughly.
e 1 litre = 1.76 pints. So, since 1 litre = 1.76 = 0.88 pints, this is less
2 2
than one pint.
f 7 pints = 7 = approximately 4 litres, or 8 half-litre bottles.
1

7. Measuring 133
 SUMMARY
This chapter started by looking at the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’
questions of measurement.

What do we measure? length, area, volume, capacity, weight,

time, temperature, angle, speed, …

How do we measure? – using words alone

– using words ranked in order
(an ordering scale)
– using numbers (a number scale)

Why do we measure? to help make decisions and comparisons

The final part of the chapter looked at the common metric and
imperial units of measure and at how we can convert within and
between the two systems.

Finally, here is a checklist of the basic skills of measuring which

you will need.

CHECKLIST

You should be able to:

€ work with the common measures (length, weight, area,

volume, capacity, time, speed, temperature)
€ use and understand standard units of these measures
(centimetre, kilogram, …)
€ estimate lengths, weights and so on, in terms of these units,
knowing when a measurement is about right and what sort of
accuracy is appropriate
€ use various measuring instruments (tape measure, ruler,
weighing scales, balance, measuring jug, thermometer, clock)
€ recognize composite units (miles per hour, price per gram, and
so on).

13
 8
Statistical graphs
In this chapter you will learn:
• how to draw a variety of statistical graphs and diagrams
• how to spot misleading graphs.

Open a newspaper or watch the news on TV and you will be

expected to make sense of a range of charts and graphs and
to process statistical facts and figures. For example, here is a
statistical fact.

Did you know that eight out of ten advertisers are prepared to mislead the public a
Furthermore, the other two are prepared to mislead the public a lot!

One of the troubles with statistics is that there is such scope for
deception. For example, I just made up the figures quoted above
out of my head. But writing them ‘in black and white’ somehow
seems to lend credibility to so-called ‘facts’.

Deception can occur not only through the quoting of incorrect

information. Equally common is ‘dirty dealing’ by means of the
incorrect display of correct information. This chapter deals with
the charts and displays that are most commonly used and misused
in the media – barcharts, piecharts, line graphs and tables – as well
as scattergraphs. It provides examples of where they are used, what
they mean, how they are interpreted and how they are sometimes
misused to create a false impression.

7. Measuring 135
Barcharts and piecharts

Barcharts and piecharts are useful when we want to compare

different categories. Barcharts (sometimes called block graphs)
consist of a set of bars set either vertically or horizontally. The
height (or length) of each bar is an indication of its size.
60
50
40
%

30
20
10
0
Grass/
grazing Crops Urba Forest/ Other Inland
n woodland agricultura water
l land
Figure 8.1 Land area by use.
Source: Social Trends 37, Figure 11.8, Office for National Statistics

35
30
25
20
%

15
10
5
0
Packed lunch Paid school meal Free school meal Other

Figure 8.2 Vertical barchart showing the lunchtime meals of pupils.

Source: Social Trends 25, Figure 3.13, CSO

The main strength of a barchart is that columns placed side by side,

or one above the other, are easier to compare. So, in Figure 8.2
for example, you can see at a glance that the most popular form
of lunchtime meal of pupils for the year in question was a packed
lunch. You can also see that roughly twice as many children took a
packed lunch as ate a free school meal.

8. Statistical graphs 135

 Sometimes barcharts can be used to show categories from more
than one source on the same graph. The most common way of
doing this is to use a compound barchart, as shown in Figure 8.3.
This compound barchart shows two for the price of one – both
male and female data are represented on the same graph.
50
45 Males
40 Females
35
30
%

25
20
15
10
5
0
Underweight Desirable Overweight Obese
Figure 8.3 Compound barchart showing body mass by sex.
Source: Social Trends 37, Table 7.9, Office for National Statistics

Sometimes you may wish to draw a barchart where the category

names are rather long. With a vertical barchart there simply
isn’t enough space to write the names beneath each bar and
so a horizontal barchart may be preferred.

Insight
Sometimes it is tempting to brighten
up a chart or diagram with a few
relevant images. However, this can
sometimes produce a misleading
chart. Look at this simple ‘barchart’
illustrating the results of a sports
survey. 7 people were asked whether
they preferred track or golf; 3 chose
‘track’ and 4 preferred ‘golf’.

Can you see what went wrong here?

It just happened that the icon for
golf was much smaller than the one
for track, as a result of which the
column corresponding to ‘track’ is
Track Golf
relatively too tall.

13
Piecharts, as the name suggests, show the information in the
form of a pie. The size of each slice of the pie indicates its value.
For example, the two piecharts in Figure 8.4 below depict the
same data that were used for the compound barchart in Figure 8.3.
In Figure 8.4, the data for males and females have been kept
separate, with one piechart drawn for each. The piecharts show the
number of males and females who fall into the four main categories
of body mass (underweight, desirable, overweight and obese).

Females 2%

24%

42%

Males 32%
1%
22%

34%

Underweight Desirable Overweight Obe

43%

Figure 8.4 Piecharts showing the body mass indices of males and females.
Source: Social Trends 37, Table 7.9, Office for National Statistics

An important feature of a piechart is that it only makes sense if

the various slices which make up the complete pie, when taken
together, actually represent something sensible. For example, the
piechart in Figure 8.5 shows, for different types of school, the

8. Statistical graphs 137

 various average pupil/teacher ratios; in other words the average
number of pupils per teacher. As the figure title suggests, this is
rather silly drawn as a piechart and would have been much better
drawn as a barchart.

It is often too easy to cast your eye vaguely over a graph and
murmur, ‘Oh, yes, I see.’ The next exercise asks you to linger on
the various graphs that you have looked at so far and to make sure
that you really do understand them.

Special
Type of Average schools
Non-maintained Nursery
school ratio
Nursery 21.5
Primary 21.9 Secondary
Secondary 15.4
Non-maintained 10.4 Primary
Special 5.8
Figure 8.5 A silly piechart showing pupil/teacher ratios by type of school, UK.
Source: Social Trends 25, Figure 3.9, CSO

EXERCISE 8.1 Interpreting graphs

1 In Figure 8.2, estimate the percentage of pupils falling into the

four categories of the lunchtime meals. Use your estimates to
check that they cover all of the pupils in the survey.

2 From Figure 8.2, estimate the percentage of pupils who

EXERCI

ate a school meal, whether paid or free.

3 From Figure 8.3, would you say that it was men or women
who had a greater than desirable weight?

4 From Figure 8.1, roughly what percentage of land is in non-urban use?

5 From Figure 8.4, which category of weight (underweight,

desirable, overweight or obese) contains roughly a quarter of
the females

13
 surveyed? For which category of weight are there roughly twice
as many females as males?

6 Explain briefly in your own words why the piechart in Figure 8.5
is silly, and make a rough sketch of what the information would
look like redrawn as a barchart.

Insight
In this era of decent computer applications such as spreadsheets or graphing pac

Scattergraphs and line graphs

The graphs you have looked at so far have been helpful if you want
to make comparisons – barcharts allow you to make comparisons
based on the heights/lengths of the bars, while comparisons within
piecharts are based on the relative sizes of the slices of the pie.

Sometimes, however, we wish to know how two different measures

are related to each other. For example:

€ Does a person’s blood pressure relate to the fat intake in

their diet?
€ Isa child’s health linked to the size of the family’s income?
€ How has a particular plant grown over time?
€ Are lung cancer and heart disease linked to smoking?

To answer these sorts of questions, which look at two different

measures together, we need a two-dimensional graph. This usually
takes the form of either a scattergraph or a line graph.

8. Statistical graphs 139

 The figures in Table 8.1 show the contributions to, and receipts
from, the EC budget of the ten highest-contributing countries in
2006. The same information is also portrayed in the scattergraph
shown in Figure 8.6. By analysing the scattergraph, it is possible
to explore the relationship between contributions and receipts.
For example, ‘Do countries which give the most tend to receive
the most?’, and so on.

Table 8.1 Contributions to, and receipts from, the EC budgets of the ten highest-
contributing countries, 2006.

Country Contributions Receipts

€ billion € billion

Germany 19.9 12.1

France 16.2 13.2
Italy 12.9 10.2
United Kingdom 12.6 9.4
Spain 9.6 15.1
Netherlands 5.7 1.9
Belgium 3.9 5.5
Sweden 2.6 1.6
Poland 2.4 4.2
Portugal 2.1 2.7
Source: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9f8/f1/ecbudget220507a.pdf

In order to draw a scattergraph of this information, you must

place one of the measures on one of the axes and one on the
other, and mark on each axis a suitable scale. As you can see
from Figure 8.6, I have chosen to place ‘Contributions’ to the
EC on the horizontal axis and ‘Receipts’ on the vertical axis.
Each country is plotted as a separate point. For example, the
point
corresponding to Spain is shown at the top of the graph. Following
the down arrow to the Contributions axis, you can see that this
point lines up with the value £9.6 billion. Reading across to the
Receipts axis from the same point, the corresponding value is
£15.1 billion.

14
 16.0
Spain

14.0

12.0

10.0
Receipts (

8.0

6.0

4.0

2.0

0.0
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0
Contributions ( billions)
Figure 8.6 Scattergraph showing the relationship between contributions and receipts to the EC.
Source: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9f8/f1/ecbudget220507a.pdf

The pattern of points on a scattergraph helps to reveal the sort of

relationship between the two measures in question. For example,
in Figure 8.6 you can see that the points lie in a fairly clear pattern
running from bottom left to top right on the graph. This reflects
the not-too-surprising fact that countries which make small
contributions (like Portugal and Poland, for example) also tend to get
small receipts. Similarly, the major contributors, like Germany and
France, are also two of the largest receivers of money from the fund.
You will probably need to spend some time consolidating your
understanding of a scattergraph, so do Exercise 8.2 now.

EXERCISE 8.2 Practising scattergraphs

Do you think that countries which have a high rate of marriage

EXERCI

also tend to have a high divorce rate? Have a look at Table 8.2
and then at the corresponding scattergraph in Figure 8.7.

a Check that you understand how the points have been plotted and
try to match each point up to its corresponding
country. (Contd)

8. Statistical graphs 141

 b Which three countries show the lowest divorce rates? Can
you provide a possible explanation for these low rates?
c Overall, does the scattergraph show a clear relationship
between a country’s marriage rate and divorce rate?

Table 8.2 Marriage and divorce rates per 1000 population: EU comparisons, 2002.
Denmark
CountryMarriageDivorces 6.9 2.8
Netherlands 5.5 2.1
Portugal 5.4 2.6
Greece 5.2 1.1
Finland 5.2 2.6
Ireland 5.1 0.7
Spain 5.1 0.9
United Kingdom 4.8 2.7
France 4.7 1.9
Germany 4.7 2.4
Italy 4.7 0.7
Austria 4.5 2.4
Luxembourg 4.5 2.4
Sweden 4.3 2.4
Belgium 3.9 3.0
EU average 4.8 1.9
Source: Social Trends 34, Table 2.13, Office for National Statistics
3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0
Divorce

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
3 4 5 6 7 8
Marriage rate
Figure 8.7 Scattergraph showing the marriage and divorce rate data.

14
Line graphs, like scattergraphs, are two-dimensional, so again
we will be dealing with two measures at a time and examining
the relationship between them. A line graph is one of the most
common types of graph and indeed is what most people think of
when we use the word ‘graph’.

500

400
Marriage

300
Thousan

200

100
Divorce

0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year

Figure 8.8 A time graph showing marriages and divorces in the UK.
Source: adapted from Social Trends 37, Figure 2.9, Office for National Statistics

Figure 8.8 shows a particular type of line graph, known as a

time graph. It is so called for the obvious reason that the measure
on the horizontal axis is time.

EXERCISE 8.3 Interpreting line graphs

a Estimate the number of marriages in 1992 in the UK.

b Notice that the points marked on the two line graphs have
EXERCI

been taken over five-year intervals. In the original line graphs

(printed in the publication Social Trends 37), the points were
based on data taken in one-year intervals. How do you think
the size of the interval might affect the overall shapes of the
line graphs?
c Overall, how have levels of marriage and divorce altered in the
UK since 1950? How would you account for these patterns?

8. Statistical graphs 143

 Misleading graphs

If you read through newspapers and magazines, it isn’t difficult to

spot graphs which are misleading. The graph below contains a fine
collection of disasters! See how many you can spot.
Unemployment graph for the North

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Figure 8.9 Spot the errors on this graph!

In order to make sense of this graph and to see some of the

distortions it contains, you really need to have a look at the
data from which it was drawn (Table 8.3).

Table 8.3 Unemployment rates (%) for the North of England (2003 to 2008).

YearRate (%)

2003 4.8
2004 4.8
2005 4.9
2006 5.2
2007 5.2
2008 5.3

14
The graph shown in Figure 8.9 certainly looks dramatic. However,
although unemployment rates in the North of England did rise
over this period, the rise was not as dramatic as suggested by
this representation. There are a number of errors and misleading
features of the graph. Let’s go through them in turn.

€ The title is not very helpful. There is no clear explanation of

what region the graph refers to (‘the North’ could refer to
anywhere), or to what is being measured (the title should state
that these are percentages).
€ The axes are not labelled. The vertical axis should show
clearly that the figures are ‘Percentages’ and the horizontal
axis should say ‘Year’.
€ There is no scale marked on the vertical axis, so you have no
idea what these figures are.
€ Although there is no printed scale on the vertical axis, the scale
fails to match up with the corresponding data in Table 8.3.
In effect, the scale has been cut, which has the effect of making
the graph look steeper.

A more correct version of the graph is shown in Figure 8.10.

4
Percenta

0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Year

Figure 8.10 Line graph showing unemployment rates (%) for the North of England (2003 to 2008).

As you can see, now the increase is not nearly so dramatic and it is
clear exactly what the figures refer to.

8. Statistical graphs 145

 One final point about the scale on the vertical axis of Figure 8.9
is that it does not start at zero. In fact it is acceptable to draw a
vertical scale starting from a number other than zero, provided
an indication is made on the axis that this has been done. The
most common method is to mark a break on the axis, as shown
below.

Sometimes
… and
the axis
sometimes
break is
it is shown
shown like
like this …
this …

Figure 8.11 shows the same graph drawn with the vertical axis
starting at 4.7% but with the break in the axis added to alert the
reader to this potential source of confusion.

To end this section on misleading graphs, here is one of the most

common types of distortion. Have a look at Figure 8.12 and see if
you can spot how it might give a false impression.

5.4

5.3

5.2
Percenta

5.1

5.0

4.9

4.8

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Year
Figure 8.11 A graph demonstrating an axis break.

14
 ££
££

2002 2005
Internet sales to UK households in 2002 = £5.0 billion
Internet sales to UK households in 2005 = £21.4 billion

Figure 8.12 Internet sales to UK households.

Source: Social Trends 37, Table 6.9, Office for National Statistics

The diagram in Figure 8.12 shows up a favourite trick of

advertisers, which is to make differences look bigger then they
actually are. Certainly, internet sales increased greatly in the UK
between 2002 and 2005 – by over four times in fact (the 2005
figure of £21.4 billion is more than four times the 2002 figure of
£5.0 billion). However, not only has the 2005 image been drawn
four times as tall as the 2002 image, but it is also four times as
wide. The overall impression of the larger image, therefore, is that
it has an area which is ‘four times four’, i.e. sixteen times as great
as that of the smaller image. Advertisers are able to exploit the fact
that most of us work on impressions, not facts!

Over the next few weeks, why don’t you look out for some more
examples of misleading graphs in newspapers and magazines.
Most people who present information to the public have some
sort of vested interest. You will find it helpful to ask yourself:
‘What is the vested interest, and therefore what impression is this
graph designed to convey?’

8. Statistical graphs 147

 If you are interested in finding out more about statistical ideas,
why not get a copy of Understand Statistics?

Answers to exercises for Chapter 8

EXERCISE 8.1

1 Estimates from Figure 8.1 are as follows:

Lunchtime meal %

Packed lunch 32
Paid school meal 29
Free school meal 16
Other 23

2 The percentage of pupils who ate a school meal, whether

paid or free, is 29% + 16% = 45%.

3 You must combine the ‘Overweight’ and ‘Obese’ categories to

identify people with greater than desirable weight. This
combined category produces a slightly higher percentage of
males than females (65% compared with 56%).

4 Roughly 15% of land is in ‘Urban’ use, so the percentage in

non- urban use is 85% (100% – 15%).

5 Roughly a quarter of the females (actually 24%) fell into the

‘Obese’ category. Roughly twice as many females as males fell
into the ‘Underweight’ category.

6 The piechart in Figure 8.5 fails to meet a basic condition of a

piechart in that the complete pie doesn’t represent anything
meaningful. In this case, the complete pie corresponds to the sum
of the various average ratios in the different types of school, and
who cares about that! The data would be more helpfully drawn as
a barchart, as shown in Figure 8.13.

14
 25

20
Average pupil/teacher

15

10

0
Nursery Primary Secondary Non-maintained Special
Type of school
Figure 8.13 Vertical barchart showing average pupil/teacher ratios by type of school.

EXERCISE 8.2
a No comments.
b The three countries with the lowest divorce rates are Ireland,
Spain and Italy. A possible explanation is that these are strongly
Catholic countries where divorce is discouraged on religious
grounds.
c There is little evidence of any clear pattern linking divorce
and marriage rates in these points.

EXERCISE 8.3
a The number of marriages in 1992 in UK was
roughly 355 thousand.
b When graphs are plotted based on data taken at one-year intervals,
as opposed to every five years, there are likely to be more subtle
changes in direction. My graphs given in Figure 8.8 are actually rather
crude, each being constructed by joining up 12 points with straight
lines. However, as you will see in the answer to part c, the sudden blip
in the divorce figures tends to be smoothed out when plotted over a
five-year interval.
c Marriage levels rose between 1950 and 1970 (as the post-war
baby boom reached marriageable age) and then fell (as
cohabiting became a more acceptable alternative to marriage).
Divorce remained fairly low until the early 1970s when it rose
rapidly until the mid 1980s, when it levelled off and even dropped
slightly. It was the 1971 Divorce Act that started this change
(there were 80 thousand divorces in 1971; by the following year

8. Statistical graphs 149

 the number had risen by over 50% to 125 thousand).

15
 SUMMARY
This chapter has covered four of the most common types of
graphs: barcharts, piecharts, scattergraphs and line graphs.
The final section dealt with misleading graphs and a list was
provided of some of the common ways in which graphs can be
drawn in an unhelpful or deliberately distorted way.

CHECKLIST

Here are some important conventions to remember when

drawing any graph or chart. Include:

€ a helpful title
€ labels and appropriate numerical scales for the axes and the
units of measure
€ data sources, where appropriate.

8. Statistical graphs 151

 9
Using a formula
In this chapter you will learn:
• why algebra might be useful
• some of the rules of algebra
• how algebra can be used to prove things.

Is algebra abstract and irrelevant?

For many students, the arrival of algebra in their school

lessons was the point at which they felt they parted company
with mathematics. Algebra has a reputation of being hard,
largely because many people see it as abstract and irrelevant
to their lives.

Let us first consider whether algebra is abstract. The simple answer

to this charge is ‘Yes it is!’ Algebra is certainly abstract, for that is
the point of algebra. The word ‘abstract’ means ‘taken away from
its familiar context’. The reason that algebra is such a powerful
tool for solving problems is that it enables complex ideas to be
reduced to just a few symbols. Naturally, if algebra is to be useful
to you, you need to understand what the symbols mean and how
they are related. Assuming this is the case, expressing something
as a brief mathematical statement (which might be a formula or
an equation) allows you to strip away the details, to forget about

9. Using a formula 151

 the context from which it was taken and focus on the essential
underlying relationship. Of course, there are often situations where
you don’t want to strip away the context (in questions of human
relationships, for example). Clearly you wouldn’t wish to use
algebra for such problems.

Next, let’s examine the charge of algebra being irrelevant.

Most people believe that they never use algebra. Yet in many
jobs, particularly, say, in medicine and engineering, formulas
are crucial for converting units, calculating drug dosages, setting
machines correctly for different tasks and so on.

Increasingly, large organizations and government institutions use

formulas for deciding on and describing their funding arrangements.
To take the example of education, a formula is used to define how
much money is allocated to secondary and primary school budgets
on the basis of the number and age of pupils. There are many
questions that immediately arise. For example:

€ Is it a fair way of allocating money?

€ Is it right that the weighting (i.e. the relative amount) for
secondary-age children is much greater than for primary-age
children, or should all children be allocated the same amount,
regardless of age?
€ How can you find out what the relative weightings are for
children of different ages?
€ Who should decide these sorts of questions and can interested
parents and teachers enter the debate?

The point I wish to make in introducing this chapter is that people

can debate this question only if they understand what a formula is
saying. If you don’t understand basic algebra, other people will be
making such decisions for you and you will have no idea whether
or not they are acting in your best interests.

Before starting to examine any formulas, we begin by looking

at some of the basic features of algebra – how it is used as
a shorthand way of expressing something, and some of the
conventions regarding how it is written.

15
 Insight
The origins of algebra can be traced back four thousand years to the ancient Ba

‘A quantity added to a quarter of itself is 20. What is the quantity?’

Algebra as shorthand

There are many situations in everyday life where it is convenient to

adopt a shorthand – usually in the form of abbreviations or special
symbols – in order to speed things up. I am aware that, for many
people, the symbols in algebra seem to cause confusion rather than
be an aid to efficiency. However, the idea of using a shorthand isn’t
just confined to mathematics.

Some examples are given in Exercise 9.1 for you to interpret.

Then, in Exercise 9.2 you are asked to examine some mathematical
shorthands.

EXERCISE 9.1 Shorthands in everyday life

ExampleSourceMeaning

a det. hse, lge gdns, gd decs, FCH …

EXERCI

b K1, P1, M1, C4F, K2,…

c PAS, MOT, fsh, good runner
d NYWJM seeks same with view to B&D,
S&M, etc.

See if you can identify the source of these shorthands. What do they mean?

9. Using a formula 153

 EXERCISE 9.2 Shorthands in mathematics

Here are some mathematical sentences. Rewrite each one

in mathematical shorthand. The first one has been done
for you.

LonghandShorthand
EXERCI

a Three multiplied by two and a half 3 × 2 12

b The sum of twelve, and four and three-quarters
c The sum of the squares of three and four
d Four times the difference of nine and three
e Five plus four, all divided by the product of five
and four
f The number of inches, I, is found by multiplying
the number of metres, M, by 39.37.

As you can see from these examples, mathematics is full of

shorthand notation. For example:

€ Instead of writing numbers out as words, ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, and

so on, we have saved time by inventing the numerals 1, 2, 3, etc.
€ Rather than say ‘multiplied by’ or ‘added to’, we use the
symbols × and +.
€ Squaring is represented by writing a small 2 above and to the
right of the number or letter that is being squared. Thus, five
squared, or 5 times 5, can be written as 5 × 5 or as 52.

More examples of notation will be explained in the next section.

For now, let us focus on part f of Exercise 9.2, as it demonstrates a
key feature of algebra.

The solution to this example, which is given on page 165, is

repeated below for convenience.
I = 39.37  M

is equal
the number of inches, I to 39.37 times the number of metres, M

15
Before reading on, make sure that you can use this formula.
For example, suppose you have just bought curtain material with a
drop (the drop is typically the distance from the curtain rail to the
window sill) of 1.20 metres and you want to know what that is in
inches. Simply replace the M in the formula by 1.20 and calculate
the corresponding value of I, as follows:
I = 39.37  1.20

is equal
the number of inches, I to 39.37 timesthe number of metres, 1.20

Using a calculator, the answer is 47.244 inches, a result which you

might round up to 48 inches. (As an aside, rounding up may be
appropriate here for two reasons. Firstly, if you are buying something
like curtain material or a carpet, it is always better to have a little bit
too much than to be a little bit short. Secondly, curtain material tends
to come in various ‘standard lengths’ and, in imperial units, 48 inches
happens to be one of these standard lengths.)

Now give some thought to how the formula, I = 39.37 × M,

has been written.

First, notice that I have introduced the abbreviations = and × to

save the trouble of writing out the words ‘equals’ and ‘times’.
You may feel that this shorthand has reduced the formula to its
bare essentials, but it is actually possible to dispense with the ×
altogether and write the formula even more briefly, as follows:

I = 39.37M

This demonstrates an important convention in algebra, namely that

writing two letters together, or a number and a letter together,
implies that they are multiplied. For example:
‘ab’ means ‘a times b’
‘4y’ means ‘4 times y’
‘1.76L’ means ‘1.76 times L’
and so on.

9. Using a formula 155

 A second aspect of the formula worth noting is that I have
used the letters I and M to represent, respectively, the number
of inches and the number of metres. In algebra, the letters which
we happen to choose to represent numbers are quite arbitrary.
Thus, I could have written the formula as, say, Y = 39.37X,
with Y representing the number of inches and X the number
of metres. However, it is usually a good idea to relate each
letter to the quantity that it represents as this will help you to
remember what the various letters stand for. For that reason,
I used the initial letters of Inches and Metres, i.e. I and M,
in this formula.

The most common letters used in basic school algebra tend to be

x, y, a, b and n

There is no obvious reason for this choice, with the possible

exception of the n, which can be thought of as representing some
unknown number.

Insight
I once observed a rather nice introductory lesson in algebra.

The teacher began by writing on the board the first line.

15
 The students were asked to guess the number inside the
box (2). The teacher then did several more questions like these.

Gradually over the next few minutes, he started to change the format. First he r

Finally he dispensed with the initial ‘squiggle’ entirely and now the letter x was

The next section deals with formulas in practical contexts and

how to use them to do calculations.

Calculating with formulas

Drug dosages need to be carefully calculated and measured out.

Giving too little of the drug means that the patient doesn’t get the
full benefit, but giving too much could be highly dangerous. The
problem is greatly complicated when the drug is to be administered
to a child, because clearly a dose that would be suitable for an
adult would be too much for a young child. There needs to be a
way of adjusting the dosages depending, perhaps, on the body
weight or the age of the child concerned. One such formula, based
on the child’s age, is as follows:
A
C=D×
A+
12
where C represents Child dosage, D represents adult Dosage and
A is the Age of the child.

Written out in longhand, this formula means the following:

Age
Child dosage = Adult dosage ×
Age + 12

9. Using a formula 157

 Example 1
Let us take an example where the adult dose of cough medicine is 10 mg of linct
Solution
First let us write down what we know.
D = 10, A = 6
With these numbers to hand, we are ready to calculate the child’s dose, using th

C=D× A= 10 × 6= 10 × 6 = 31 mg
A + 12 6 + 12 18 3

Now here are some to try for yourself.

EXERCISE 9.3 Calculating dosages

Using the formula C = D × A , calculate the dosages for the following

A
situations.
EXERCI

a An adult prescription of a certain drug is 24 micrograms

(µg). What would be an appropriate dose for a child aged
10 years?
b An adult prescription of another drug is 200 µg. What would
be an appropriate dose for a child aged 4 years?

We now move on to another formula, this time for converting

temperatures. Temperatures in degrees Celsius can be converted to
degrees Fahrenheit with the following formula.

F = 1.8 C  32

i.e. the temperature in degrees

... multiplying Fahrenheit
the temperature in is
degrees Celsius by 1.8 and ...
found by ... ... adding 32.

15
Here is an example of the formula in operation.

Now here are2some

Example fortemperatures
Oven you to try.

EXERCISE 9.4 Temperature

A typical cooking conversion
temperature for an oven is 180°C. What is this in °F?

a Solution
A warm summer day’s temperature would be something like

EXERCI
30°C. What would this be in degrees Fahrenheit?
b Applying
The boiling point of water is 100°C. What is this in °F?
the formula:
c There is only one temperature which is the same in degrees F
as in degrees C. Try to find it.
The temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, F = 1.8 × 180 + 32
(Hint: It is a temperature well below freezing point.)
= 356°F

The next example of a formula is concerned with calculating a

phone bill. Telephone bills are usually calculated each quarter on
the basis of a fixed sum for the rental of the line plus a variable
cost based on the calls you make. For example, my last bill of
£97.61 was made up of a rental of £20.16 and a further 4.20
pence per unit used. The formula for this can be written as
follows:

C = 20.16 + 0.042U

where C is the Charge in pounds and U is the number of

Units used.

9. Using a formula 159

 Notice that the charge rate of 4.20 pence per unit has been
rewritten in the formula in pounds (i.e. as 0.042) in order to match
with the units of the rental which is also expressed in pounds.

Exercise
Example9.5 gives
3 you the opportunity to try some of these for
yourself.
I used 1844 units last quarter. Is the quarterly charge for my
EXERCISE
telephone 9.5 More bills
bill correct?
EXERCI

Calculate the quarterly charge for a household which used:

Solution

a The
944 unitsis calculated as follows:
charge
b 3122 units.
C = 20.16 + (0.042 × 1844) = £97.61 (rounded to the nearest

Insightpenny) This confirms the bill which I received as being correct.

One formula that most people will have come across is Albert Einstein’s equation conn
The formula E = mc2 states that the energy possessed by a body is equal to its mass m

16
Proving with algebra

This final section looks at an aspect of mathematics close to the

hearts of mathematicians – the idea of proof. Without algebra,
proving that a mathematical result is true is quite difficult.
It is often easy enough to show that the result is true for several
particular numbers but it is quite a different matter to say that
you know it is true for all possible numbers. For example, is it
the case that adding two odd numbers always produces an even
answer?

We could take some examples and see if it works. Thus:

3 + 7 = 10, which is even

5 + 11 = 16, which is even
23 + 15 = 38, which is even
111 + 333 = 444, which is even.

So, it does seem to be true, but have we proved it? Certainly not!
Checking only four examples does not constitute a proof.

But what if I produced another 20 examples, or 100, or even

a million? That would be quite impressive, but unfortunately
providing lots and lots of special cases would not cut much
mustard with a mathematician. Why, then, is it so hard to prove
a numerical result to be always true? The reason is that you can’t
try all the infinite number of possible cases, and it would only
take one of the ones you didn’t get round to checking to be wrong
to blow your theory apart. While arithmetic is useful for doing
calculations with particular numbers, algebra is needed for making
generalizations. The mathematical proof of this generalization
(that the sum of two odd numbers is always even) is outlined and
explained below. But before launching in to it, you need to spend
a few minutes thinking about how we might represent even and
odd numbers algebraically.

9. Using a formula 161

 AN ASIDE ON EVEN AND ODD NUMBERS

If we think of a whole number as represented by, say, the letter K,

then we can write even numbers as 2K. You can check this out by
giving K any value you wish to think of. For example:

€ when K = 3, 2K = 6, which is even

€ when K = 8, 2K = 16, which is even
€ when K = 13, 2K = 26, which is even
€ when K = 50, 2K = 100, which is even
and so on.

The reason we know that 2K is always even is that it contains a

factor 2, which is essentially what an even number is.

Similarly, if we represent a whole number by, say, the letter L,

an odd number can be written with the formula 2L + 1. Again,
let’s take a few examples to check this out:

€ when L = 3, 2L + 1 = 7, which is odd

€ when L = 8, 2L + 1 = 17, which is odd
€ when L = 13, 2L + 1 = 27, which is odd
€ when L = 50, 2L + 1 = 101, which is odd.

And again, from logical reasoning, we can show that the number 2L
+ 1 must be odd. The explanation lies in the fact that the number
2L + 1 is 1 more than the number 2L, which itself must be even
because it contains the factor 2. A number one greater than an even
number is necessarily odd.

With these ways of representing even and odd numbers at our

disposal, we are now ready to prove the earlier result algebraically.
I have restated it in Example 4.

16
 Example 4

Prove algebraically the result that the sum of two odd numbers
always gives an even number.
Solution
One possibility might be to let both the two odd numbers be
represented by 2K + 1. However, the problem with doing this is
that, whatever value for K is chosen, we find ourselves with two
odd numbers with the same value. This is subtly different from
the problem we set out to prove. We need to allow the two odd
numbers to be different, so, using different letters, we can let them
be 2K + 1 and 2L + 1, respectively.
Their sum is (2K + 1) + (2L + 1).
Simplifying, we get 2K + 2L + 1 + 1 = 2K + 2L + 2.
Now, notice that 2K + 2L + 2 can be written as 2(K + L + 1).
Since this number contains a factor of 2, and K + L + 1 is a whole
number, then 2(K + L + 1) must be even.
We have now proved the result in general terms. No matter what
whole number values you think up for K and L, the general argument
demonstrates that the result 2(K + L + 1) will always be an even
number.

If you are unfamiliar with algebraic reasoning, you may need to

read this proof through more than once. Then, when you are more
confident, have a try at writing your own proof in your answer to
Exercise 9.6.

By the way, don’t worry if you find this difficult. Most people find
algebraic proofs hard to fathom and you would need a lot more
practice at working with algebraic symbols than has been provided
in this chapter if you are to perform proofs with confidence.
I have included it mostly to indicate the sorts of things that
mathematicians spend their time on, and to give you an insight into
how algebraic symbols can be an aid in solving abstract problems.

9. Using a formula 163

 Insight
Two words that cause confusion in algebra are expression
and equation. Typically, an algebraic expression is just
a collection of letters and numbers placed together with
addition or subtraction signs between them. They are often
provided in textbooks for students to practise collecting ‘like’
terms together (2x and 3x are ‘like’ terms because the letter
part, the x, is the same in each).

So, in the first expression below, the 2x and 3x terms can be

put together giving 5x and the whole expression is simplified
to 5x – 2y.

Expressions
2x – 2y + 3x
4a – 6b + 2b

Equations consist of a statement of two expressions that are

equal. You’ll know it is an equation as it always contains an
equal sign = (the clue is in the first four letters of ‘equal’ and
‘equation’). Equations are provided in textbooks for students
to solve – that is, to work out the value of the unknown letter
that makes the equality true. For example, the solution to the
first equation below is x = 2, because 2 + 3 = 5.

Equations
x+3=5
2x – 5 = 3

EXERCISE 9.6 Proving with algebra

Is it true that the product of two odd numbers is always an odd number?
EXERCI

(Reminder: product means ‘the result of multiplying together’.)

Test this out first with a few special cases and then try to prove
it algebraically.

16
 Answers to exercises for Chapter 9

EXERCISE 9.1

ExampleSourceMeaning

a det. hse, lge gdns, Newspaper ad. Detached house, large

gd decs, FCH … for a house gardens, good decorations,
full central heating …
b K1, P1, M1, Knitting Knit 1, Purl 1, Make 1, Cable 4
C4F, K2, … forward, Knit 2
c PAS, MOT, fsh Newspaper ad. Power assisted steering, holds
for a car an MOT certificate, full
service history
d NYWJM seeks Personal ad. in a New York white Jewish male
same with view to US newspaper … Bondage & Discipline,
B&D, S&M, etc. Sadism & Masochism, etc.

EXERCISE 9.2

LonghandShorthand

a Three multiplied by two and a half 3×2

1

2
b The sum of twelve, and four and three-quarters 12 + 4 3
4
c The sum of the squares of three and four 32 + 42
d Four times the difference of nine and three 4 (9 – 3)
e Five plus four, all divided by the product of five and 5+4
four 5×4
f The number of inches, I, is found by multiplying I = 39.37 × M
the number of metres, M, by 39.37

EXERCISE 9.3
a A ten-year-old’s dosage is 24 × 10 = 24 × 10 = 10.9 µg.
10 + 12 22
b 4 4
A four-year-old’s dosage is 200 × = 200 × = 50 µg.
4 + 12 16

9. Using a formula 165

 EXERCISE 9.4

a F = 1.8 × 30 + 32 = 86°F
b F = 1.8 × 100 + 32 = 212°F
c You might have tried to find this temperature by trial and error.
The solution is –40. This can be checked by putting the value –40°C
into the formula, and the result –40°F comes out.

Thus:
F = 1.8 × –40 + 32 = –40°F

The answer can be calculated directly using algebra, as follows.

Let the unknown temperature be T.

If the temperature T°F = T°C, then they are connected by the

formula, as follows.

T = 1.8T + 32

The table below summarizes how this equation can now be solved.

Algebra Explanation

T = 1.8T + 32 This is the equation to be solved.

T – 1.8T = 1.8T – 1.8T + 32 Subtract 1.8T from both sides (Note 1).
–0.8T = 32 Simplify the terms in T.
–0.8T 32 Divide both sides by –0.8 (Note 2).
–0.8 =–0.8

T = 32 Simplify.
–0.8
= –40 The solution of the equation is –40.

Note 1: The intention here is to collect the T terms on one side of

the = and leave the number on the other side.
Note 2: The intention here is to isolate the T on its own.
Remember that the object of the exercise is to find the value of T.

16
EXERCISE 9.5

The formula is C = 20.16 + 0.042U

a C = 20.16 + (0.042 × 944) = £59.81 (rounded to the nearest
penny).
b C = 20.16 + (0.042 × 3122) = £151.28 (rounded to the
nearest penny).

EXERCISE 9.6

It is true that the product of two odd numbers is always an

odd number.

First, here are some special cases:

3 × 5 = 15, which is odd
5 × 9 = 45, which is odd
13 × 7 = 91, which is odd
113 × 5613 = 634 269, which is odd.

Now we move on to a general algebraic solution.

As before, we can let these two odd numbers be represented by 2K +

1 and 2L + 1.

Their product is (2K + 1) × (2L + 1).

This can be written as 2K(2L + 1) + 1(2L + 1).
Simplifying, we get 4KL + 2K + 2L + 1.

Ignoring the final term, the ‘1’ for the moment, notice that the
first three terms, 4KL + 2K + 2L, can be written as 2(2KL + K + L).

Since this number contains a factor of 2, and 2KL + K + L is a

whole number, then 4KL + 2K + 2L must be even.

Now add the final ‘1’ and it follows that 4KL + 2K + 2L + 1 is odd.

9. Using a formula 167

 SUMMARY
A key point made in the introduction to this chapter was that it
is silly to criticize algebra because it is abstract. Essentially, the
purpose of algebra is to be abstract. Algebra involves expressing
relationships in a mathematical shorthand in the form of symbols
and letters. This has the effect of reducing the problem to its bare
essentials and allows you to see and manipulate its main features.
Certain algebraic conventions were explained (for example, that
writing 4X actually means ‘4 times X’).

As the title suggests, the main activities of the chapter involved

using formulas and you were invited to dip your toe into the
esoteric world of mathematical proof.

16
 10
Puzzles, games and diversions
In this chapter you will learn:
• about the fun side of maths with a collection of puzzles and
number games.

Insight
Curiosity may be a life-threatening trait for felines but it is the lifeblood of mathem
helpful piece of mathematics. And by the time you finish working through the puz

This chapter provides a few suggestions for number puzzles and

activities which should help to amuse and entertain on a long
journey or a wet weekend.

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 169

 1 Bus number game

Games with bus numbers are best played in cities, where buses are
plentiful. See if you can spot bus numbers where:

€ the digits add up to 10 (e.g. 163)

€ all the digits are even (e.g. 284)
€ all the digits are odd (e.g. 39)
€ all the digits are prime numbers (e.g. 275).

With practice, most people quickly get good at spotting patterns

in numbers, in which case the game can be made more challenging.
For example, try to spot bus numbers that are the product of
two primes (e.g. 91 is the product of 7 and 13, both of which
are prime).

Interesting numbers
The renowned Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, was
once visited by the British mathematician G.H. Hardy. Hardy
remarked that he had just travelled in a taxi bearing the rather
dull number 1729.

‘On the contrary’, said his friend, ‘it is a very interesting number.
It is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in
two different ways’ (10 cubed plus 9 cubed or 12 cubed plus
1 cubed).

Not everyone has quite the same fascination and skill with
number properties as Ramanujan. But you should not
underestimate the degree of interest and social cachet you are
likely to attract at dinner parties by passing on gems about the
properties of certain numbers. For example, a perfect opening
line during that awkward ‘first introduced’ phase at a party

17
 might be, ‘Did you know that our host’s telephone number is the first six digits of t

Well, this sort of chat-up line certainly seems to work for me!

2 Pub cricket

This is played on a car or coach journey where the route is likely to

pass a number of pubs.

Players take turns to ‘bat’. You score according to the number of

legs (human or animal) which can be seen on each pub sign that
you drive past. For example, the ‘Bull and Butcher’ scores six (four
for the bull and two for the butcher), while the ‘White Hart’ scores
four. If you go past a pub sign which has no legs, then you are ‘out’
and the next player takes a turn at batting.

Popular signs in this game, by the way, are the ‘Coach and Horses’
(with 24 or more legs, depending on the number of horses) and the
‘Cricketers’ Arms’ (with up to 30, depending on whether or not
both batsmen and both umpires are depicted!)

3 Guess my number

One player picks a number between 1 and 100 and the other player
must guess it with as few questions as possible. Note that the
questions must be such that they require a Yes/No answer.

Useful questions are ones such as:

‘Is it less than 50?’ or ‘Is it even?’
Less useful questions are ones such as:
‘Is it 26?’ since this eliminates only one number at a time.

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 171

 4 Finger tables

Most people know their ‘times table’ up to about 5. However, with 6

and above they may have problems. Here is a method which provides
the answer to all products between 6 and 10 (remember that in
mathematics ‘product’ means what you get when you multiply),
using the cheapest digital calculator around – your fingers.

Place your hands in front of

you as in the diagram, thumbs
uppermost.

Number the fingers as shown above. Now to multiply, say, 7 and

8, touch the 7 finger of one hand with the 8 finger of the other
(it doesn’t matter which way round).

Now the answer to 8 × 7 can be found as follows:

a Count the number of fingers below and including the touching

fingers (in this case 5). This gives the number of tens in the
answer.
b Multiply the number of fingers on each hand above the
touching fingers (here it is 3 × 2 = 6). This gives the number
of units in the answer.

So the answer is 56.

Try it for some other numbers. Why does it always work?

You will need to do some algebra to prove it works every time!

17
5 The story of 12

How many different stories can you make of 12?

Well, it is 11 + 1, 10 + 2, etc. Don’t forget it is also 12 + 0.
What about 4 × 3, 3 × 4 and 6 × 2? And don’t forget 12 × 1.
Now we’re getting stuck. Ah! It’s 24 lots of a 1half, so it’s 24 × 1 .
Well, if you’re allowing fractions it’s 1 + 10 .
3 2
4 4

Hey, this could go on all night!

6 Magic squares

This is a magic square.

A magic square is so named

8 1 6 because all the rows, columns
and diagonals ‘magically’ add to
3 5 7 the same total (in this case, 15).
This is known as a 3 by 3 magic
square because there are three
4 tf 2 rows and three columns.

€ Can you make a different 3 by 3 magic square so that all the

rows, columns and diagonals add to 15?
€ How about a 4 by 4 magic square … or a 5 by 5?

Hint: You may have spotted that the total of 15 for the 3 by 3
magic square is 3 times 5 (5 is both the number in the centre
square and the middle value in the range of 1 to 9). Can you first
of all work out what the rows, columns and diagonals of the
4 by 4 square should add to?

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 173

 7 Magic triangle

2 3

The numbers 1, 2 and 3 have been placed at the vertices (i.e. the
corners) of the triangle.

Can you place two of the following numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and

9 along each side of the triangle so that the four numbers on
each side (i.e. including the numbers at the vertices) add up
to 17?

8 Upside

The year 1961 reads the same when turned upside down.
When was the most recent year prior to 1961 that reads the same
upside down?

When will be the next year that this works?

Explore what happens when letters and numbers are turned upside
down. For example, what digits become letters of the alphabet
when turned upside down?

17
9 Logically speaking

a What word is from this sentence?

b 1981 is to 1861 as 8901 is to what?
c Seven numbers can be seen in this sentence, but you
know three of them are written out backwards.
What are they?
d Ten birds sit on a roof. You make a noise to scare them off,
and all but four of them fly away. How many are left?
e How old is a coin engraved with the date 88BC?
f You have three pairs of different-coloured socks in a drawer,
each sock separated from its partner. How many single
socks do you take out, without looking, to be sure that you
have:
(i) a matching pair of any colour?
(ii) a matching pair of a particular colour?
g You need seven candle stubs to make a new candle. How
many candles will you be able to make if you start with
49 stubs?
h What is the fewest number of coins you need to pay for
something costing 85p without receiving change?
i Fill in the missing signs in the sums below.
2 4 3= 5
2 2 2= 3
8 2 2= 2

10 The bells, the bells!

a If it takes 15 seconds for a church bell to chime 6 o’clock,

how long does it take to chime midnight? (It’s not as easy
as it sounds!)
b A fence panel is 2 m long. How many fence posts are needed to
panel a 16 m gap?

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 175

 11 Calculator inversions

Enter the number 53045 on your calculator. Now turn it upside

down. Can you see something that helps you keep your feet off
the ground?

Next, try decoding the following ‘message’:

3145 × 10 + 123
204 ÷ 4
0.5 × 0.5 × 2
257 × 3

Finally, have a go at the following crossword puzzle. Use the

results of each calculation, upside down, to fit the puzzle.

1 2 3 4

5 6

89

10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17

17
Across Down
1 3 × 1000 + 45 may be a 2 0.65 + 0.1234 is one third of
good fit (4) a police officer’s greeting (5)
6 5 × 1111 – 18 is no 3 17 × 10 × 7 × 3 + 3 is
more (4) another possibility (4)
7 93 – 19 is useful for 4 112 × 31 is emerald in
troubled waters (3) Ireland (4)
8 25 + 11 but please speak 5 1111 × 5 – 48 for a no-win
up! (2) situation (4)
10 123 × 25 for a quick 9 Two-fifths expressed as a
gin? (4) decimal is one-third of a
12 Two score, for a surprise Christmas greeting (2)
(2) 11 1101 × 7 describes life in
14 13 × 24439 + 5000000, so the 10 across lane? (4)
stop and buy some (7) 13 19 × 2 × 193 can be found
16 432 + 1 for the Spanish (2) on a 1 across (4)
6
17 70 Verily, it sounds like a 15 Half could be a needle
1
cow hath spoken (2) pulling thread (2)

12 Four 4s

The number 7 can be expressed using four 4s as follows:

7=4+4−4
4

Express the numbers 0, 1, 2, …, 10 using exactly four 4s and

any other operation (for example, +, –, ×, ÷). You are also
allowed square root, .

Hint: 2 can be written as 4+ 4 .

4

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 177

 13 Return journey

I plan to complete a return journey (there and back) in an average

time of 40 mph. However, my outward journey is slow and
I complete that part at 20 mph. How fast must I travel on the
return journey to average 40 mph overall?

14 Find the numbers

a Two consecutive numbers add to give 49. What are the numbers?
b Three consecutive numbers have a total of 60. What are the
numbers?
c Two consecutive numbers have a product of 600. What are
the numbers? (Note: The product is what you get when you
multiply.)
d Three consecutive numbers have a product of 1716. What are
the numbers?
e Two numbers have a difference of 15 and a product of 54.
What are the numbers?

15 Explore and explain the pattern

Try these out on your calculator.

37 × 3, 37 × 33, 37 × 333, etc. (111, 1221, 12 231)

12, 112, 1112, 11112, …. (1, 121, 12 321, …)
Take three consecutive numbers. (say, 8, 9 and 10)
Multiply the first and third number. (8 × 10 = )
Square the middle number. (9 × 9 = )
Subtract the smaller answer from the bigger answer.
The result is 1. (81 – 80 = 1)

Does this always work for three consecutive numbers?

17
16 1089 and all that
Take a three-digit number. (say, 724)

Reverse the digits and subtract whichever

is the smaller from the bigger. (724 – 427 = 297)

Reverse the digits of the answer and add it

to the answer. (792 + 297 = 1089)

Try it for other three-digit numbers. Why does 1089 keep

cropping up? Do you always get 1089? If not, then which numbers
does it not work for? Why?

Insight
By the way, this puzzle can be set up as a trick to impress
your friends, as follows.

Write down the figure 1089 on a piece of paper and seal it in

an envelope beforehand.

Then ask the friend to choose any three-digit number and

perform the calculation described above.

Note: If a zero occurs in any part of the calculation, this must

be counted as well. For example: 534 – 435 = 099.

Reversed, 099 becomes 990. This gives 099 + 990 = 1089.

In order to give the trick a little pzazz, ask your ‘victim’ for
some additional but totally irrelevant information (for
example, date of birth, telephone number, favourite colour,
and so on).

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 179

 17 Large and small sums

Try to arrange the digits 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (each used once only) to

form two numbers so that the sum of the numbers is as large as
possible.

Now try to arrange them so their sum is as small as

possible. Explore the same sorts of questions for

multiplication, …

18 Gold pieces

In exchange for your lucky calculator and this oh-so-precious

maths textbook, the evil, cunning and extremely wealthy empress
Calcula offers you a choice of one of the following options.

You will be given:

either
a As many gold pieces as the number of minutes you have been
alive;
or
b As many gold pieces as the largest number you can get on your
calculator by pressing just five keys;
or
c One gold piece on the first day of this month, two on the
second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on,
ending on the last day of the month.

With the help of your calculator, decide what you should do.

18
19 Initially speaking

This puzzle is easiest to explain with the following example.

Clue Solution
3 B M, S H T R 3 Blind Mice, See How They Run

Now complete the solutions below.

If you get them all right, it should spell out the name of a film as
well as a catchphrase when you read down the central boxes.

3 BLIND MICE
S EE HOW THEY RUN
101 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ O
__
3M__K______
10 Y________IN A E____
_
L_______
18 H _ _ _ _ IN A _ _
I _ _ _ B_ _ _ _ IN A _ _ _
24 B_ _ _ _ _
K _ _ OF O_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
WE
3 E___

THE 10 C _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I _ _ _ _ _ IN A Y_ _ _
3 T___________
6 H ________
76 T_______________IN O _ _ _ _ T _ _ _
64 S____________ON A T OF W_ _ _ _
_
11 P_ _ _ _ _ _ IN A _ _
100 IS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

20 Guess the number

The rules of this game are given at the end of Chapter 5.

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 181

 21 Nim

Nim is one of the oldest recorded games, possibly Chinese in

origin, and is usually played by two people. There are many
versions of Nim, one of which is described below.

Start with a pile of matchsticks. Each player, in turn, removes at

least one but not more than six matches. The winner is the player
who picks up the last match.

Here is a typical game.

Start with 28 matches in the pile.

A picks up 4 matches, leaving 24.
B picks up 5 matches, leaving 19.
A picks up 2 matches, leaving 17.
B picks up 6 matches, leaving 11.
A picks up 3 matches, leaving 8.
B picks up 1 match, leaving 7.
A (realizing that defeat is just a match away) picks up 1 match,
leaving 6.
B picks up all remaining 6 matches, thereby winning game, set
… and match.

22 Calculator snooker

Player A enters any two-digit number. Player B takes a ‘shot’ by

multiplying with another number. To ‘pot’ a ball, the first digit
of the answer must be correct according to the table shown.
(The degree of accuracy can be varied according to experience.)

Ball Red Yellow Green Brown Blue Pink Black

Result needed 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7…
Score 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

18
Otherwise, the rules are similar to ‘real’ snooker. There are 10 (or
15) reds and one of each of the six ‘colours’. A player must score in
the order red, colour, red, colour, and so on, until all the reds have
gone. (Note: The colours are replaced but the reds are not.) When
the last red has gone, the colours are potted ‘in order’ and are not
replaced.

For example, one sequence of plays was:

Player Enters Display Comments

Karen 69 69
Peta ×2= 138 Peta pots the first red.
She elects to go for blue …
×5= 690 … and misses.
Karen ×2= 1380 Karen pots the second red.
She elects to go for black …
× 5.5 = 7590 … and pots it.
× 1.6 = 12144 The third red.
She elects to go for black again …
×7= 85008 … and misses.

23 Place invaders

This game, for one or two players, can be played at different levels
(1, 2, 3, etc.). Move on to a new level when you find the game
too easy.

PLACE INVADERS 1

Enter a 3-digit number into the calculator. These three digits are
removed one at a time by subtracting to zero.

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 183

 Example: Starting number 352

Key presses 2 Display 350

50 300
  You can make up your own numbers and let yo
300 0 partner remove them
 

 

Try the following:

416, 143, 385, 512, 853, 264, 179, 954, 589, 741.

PLACE INVADERS 2

This is the same as Place invaders 1 except that the digits must be
removed in ascending order.

Example: Starting number 352

Key presses 2 Display 350

300 50
 
50 0 i.e. you remove the 2, then the 3, and
  then the 5

 

PLACE INVADERS 3

This is the same as Place invaders 2, except that you can use
numbers with more digits. Try 4-digit numbers, then numbers
with 5, 6, 7 and 8 digits.

PLACE INVADERS 4

This is the same as Place invaders 3, except that you remove the
digits by addition, not subtraction. This time the game will end
with a 1 followed by a string of zeros. Use as few goes as possible.

18
Example: Starting number 1736

Key presses 4 Display

60 1740
 
200 1800
8000
  2000
10000
 

 

Note: If you start with a 5-digit number, the game ends with a
display of 100000.

PLACE INVADERS 5

This is the same as Place invaders 3, except that you can use
decimals, e.g. 451.326, to be removed by subtraction in the order
of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Note: If you make a mistake, it is easy to undo by adding back the

number that you have just subtracted.

Answers for Chapter 10

Note: There are no comments for puzzles 1 –

5 6 MAGIC SQUARES

Here is another 3 by 3 magic square.

2 7 6

9 5 1

4 3 8

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 185

 Any other solution must be a reflection or rotation of the
original 3 × 3 square.

Now here is a 4 by 4 magic square.

16 3 2 13

5 10 11 8

9 6 7 12

4 15 14 1

With this 4 by 4 magic square each row, column and diagonal adds
to 34. What makes this one even more magic is that each block of
four corner squares also adds to 34.

Hang on – what about the four central numbers …?

7 MAGIC TRIANGLE
1

8 9

6 4

2 3
7 5

8 UPSIDE DOWN

a 1881 b 8008

18
9 LOGICALLY SPEAKING

a What word is missing from this sentence?

b 1981 is to 1861 as 8901 is to 1068.
c The three ‘backwards’ numbers are in bold type here; the
other four are underlined.
Seven numbers can be seen in this sentence, but you know three
of them are written out backwards.
d Four birds are left.
e No coin could have been engraved with this date.
f (i) 4 socks (ii) 6 socks
g Seven candles initially. But these will produce seven more
stubs, so the answer is eight.
h Four coins: 50p + 20p + 10p + 5p
i 2  4  3=5
2  2  2=3
8  2  2 = 2 or  2  2=2
8

10 CALCULATOR INVERSIONS

ELSiE iS SO iLL

1 S OL 3 E
HEL
2 4ISL
O 6L E
5 L S E S
I
7O S

10 S
8
E 9 H
12 O
11 L E 13H
O EE
14 L 17 L

L O L L I S
15

O
16 E

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 187

 11 FOUR 4S

0=4+4–4–4

1 = 44 ++ 44 = 4444= 4 +4 4 – 4

2 = 44 + 4
4

3 = 4 + 4 +4 4

4 = 4 + 4–4
4

4
5=4+4+ 4

6 = 4 + 4 + 44

7 = 44 – 4 = 4 + 4 – 4
4 4

8=4+4+4–4

9=4+4+4
4

4
10 = 4 + 4 + 4

12 THE BELLS, THE BELLS!

a Answer: 33 seconds.
It takes 15 seconds for 6 chimes. There are 5 intervals between
the first and the sixth chime. Therefore it must take 3 seconds
per interval. A series of 12 chimes has 11 intervals, hence 33
seconds.
b 9 posts are needed for 8 spaces.

Both the above questions refer to a common ‘type’ of maths

question known as the old ‘posts and spaces’ trick. There are two
things to remember in any ‘posts and spaces’ sort of situation.
Firstly, be clear about which you are trying to count, the ‘posts’ or
the ‘spaces’. And secondly, remember that there is always one
fewer ‘space’ than there are ‘posts’.

18
13 RETURN JOURNEY

It can’t be done! Suppose the total distance (there and back) is 40 miles,
then the total journey (there and back) must take exactly one hour.
If the outward journey of 20 miles is completed at a speed of 20
mph, the one hour is completely used up!

14 FIND THE NUMBERS

a 24 and 25
b 19, 20 and 21
c 24 and 25
d 11, 12 and 13
e 3 and 18

15 EXPLORE AND EXPLAIN THE PATTERN

a 111, 1221, 12321. These numbers are palindromes (i.e. they read
the same backwards as forwards).
b 1, 121, 12321, 1234321. Again a palindromic sequence similar, but
not identical, to part a.
c This result works for all sets of three consecutive numbers.

16 LARGE AND SMALL SUMS

The largest sum is 573 (541 + 32) or (542 + 31)

The smallest sum is 159 (125 + 34) or (124 + 35)
The largest product is 22 403 (521 × 43)
The smallest product is 3185 (245 × 13).

17 1089 AND ALL THAT

This result works for most but not all numbers. Try starting with
some palindromic numbers and see what happens.

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 189

 18 GOLD PIECES

Let us calculate each option in turn.

a As many gold pieces as the number of minutes you have

been alive.
Assuming that you are, say, 45 years old, the required calculation
is: 45 × 365 × 24 × 60 = 23 652 000.
In other words, between 23 million and 24 million.

b As many gold pieces as the largest number you can get on

your calculator by pressing just five keys.
My best effort here was to press:
99  9 
This comes up with a puny 891 gold pieces. If your calculator has a
‘square’ function, marked X2 , you will do much better than this. So
much so that even five key presses will produce an answer too
large for most calculators to display and which will therefore
result in an error message. For example:
99 X2 X2 X2 produces an error message on my calculator.

c One gold piece on the first day of this month, two on the second,
four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on, ending on the last
day of the month.
This arrangement may sound very low key, but in fact it will
produce an astronomically large result quite quickly. The best way
to get
an impression of the effects of doubling is to set your calculator’s
constant to multiply by 2 and then keep  . What you will
pressing see should be something like the
following:

Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 12 … 16
Amount 1 2 4 8 16 32 … 2048 … 32 768

Before you get to the end of the month you will probably find
that the calculator has over-stretched itself and produced an
error message!

19
 The answer, therefore, is that the ‘best’ option to choose depends
on what sort of features your calculator has – for example, how
many figures it displays, which keys it provides and so on. But
whichever calculator you use, the third option is certainly a good
one to go for!

19 The phrase is Some Like It Hot.

3 BLIND MICE
S EE HOW THEY RUN
101 DALMATI O
NS
3 M USKETEERS
10 YEARS IN A D E CADE
18 HOLES IN A GO L F COURSE
24 BLACKB I RDS BAKES IN A PIE
WE 3 K
INGS OF ORIENT ARE
THE 10 COMMANDM E
NTS
36 I NCHES IN A YARD
76 TROMBONE IN T HE BIG PARADE
64 SQUARES ON A C H ESS BOARD
11 PLAYERS IN A FO O TBAL TEAM
100 IS THE BOILING POIN T OF WATER

20–23 No comments.

10. Puzzles, games and diversions 191

 11
Spreadsheets
In this chapter you will learn:
• what a spreadsheet is
• why spreadsheets are useful
• how to use a spreadsheet to calculate sums, sequences
and percentages.

An overview of a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a computer tool that is used to set out information

in rows and columns on a screen. Usually the rows are numbered

Cell B3

Figure 11.1 A basic spreadsheet grid.

19
1, 2, 3, etc. down the left-hand side, while the columns are labelled
A, B, C, etc. across the top. A typical spreadsheet might resemble
that shown opposite, except that more rows and columns are
visible on the screen at any one time.

Each ‘cell’ is a location where information can be stored. Cells are

identified by their column and row position. For example, cell B3 is
indicated in Figure 11.1; it is the cell in row 3 of column B.

The information you might want to put into each cell will be one
of three basic types:

€ Numbers. These can be either whole numbers or decimals,

for example 7, 120, 6.32.
€ Words. These can either be headings or explanatory text.
€ Formulas. The real power of a spreadsheet is its ability to
handle formulas.

Here is a simple example of using a formula.

First, I enter my height in metres (1.72) into cell A2, by selecting

cell A2, typing 1.72 and pressing Enter. I could then enter a
formula into cell B2 for converting the height into centimetres,
by selecting cell B2 and typing:

=A2*100

Press the Enter key to ‘enter’ the formula and the value 172 is
displayed in B2. Note that, although I have typed a formula into
cell B2, what is displayed is the numerical value of the formula
(in this case, 172).

This is illustrated in Figure 11.2 overleaf. Note that on this

screen the cursor is currently set on cell B2 (this is evident as both
column B and row 2 are highlighted, as is the cell itself). The value
displayed in the cell is 172, and the formula that produced it is
shown in the formula bar at the top.

11. Spreadsheets 193

 Figure 11.2 Converting metres to centimetres.

In general, a formula entered into a particular cell will contain

a calculation. More often than not, the formula will contain
a reference to some other cell or cells. The cell containing the
formula will then display a value calculated from the numbers
currently stored in the cell (or cells) referred to in the formula.
Now enter any new height in metres into cell A2 and the value
in B2 immediately adjusts to display the corresponding height in
centimetres.

Figure 11.3 The calculation updates to match the new value in cell A2.

A defining feature of a formula is that it starts with an ‘=’ symbol.

If you forget to include this, the spreadsheet will treat the entry
simply as text and display exactly what was typed in. This is what
has happened in Figure 11.4.

19
Figure 11.4 A formula with a missing ‘=’.

Spreadsheet formulas can cover anything from calculating an

average or a row or column total or perhaps, as in the example
above, a conversion from one unit of measure to another. As you
can see, if relevant cell values are altered, the formula will instantly
and automatically recalculate on the basis of the updated values
and display the new result.

Insight
Every summer I teach at a maths summer school for
teachers and one of the sessions is an introduction to
spreadsheets. Many of the attending students have never
used this tool before and the standard comment afterwards
is: ‘I really had no idea you could do all those things on
a spreadsheet!’

It is a common misconception that the primary function

of a spreadsheet is for laying out data in a table so that
it can be visually inspected. Yes, a spreadsheet will let
you display data, but this is just a small part of what it
can do for you. As well as being able to reorganize the
figures, you can also use a spreadsheet to summarize
them and plot them in a variety of different charts and
graphs.

But most of all, as I hope you will find as you work through
this chapter, using spreadsheets is fun!

11. Spreadsheets 195

 Why bother using a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet is useful for storing and processing data when

repeated calculations of a similar nature are required. Next to
word processing, a spreadsheet is the most frequently used tool in
business. It is also extremely useful for householders to help solve
problems that crop up in their various life roles as consumers, tax
payers, members of community organizations, etc. A spreadsheet
can be used to investigate questions such as:

€ How much will this journey cost for different groups of people?
€ Is my bank statement correct?
€ Which of these buys offers the best value for money?
€ What is the calorie count of these various meals?
€ What would these values look like sorted in order from
smallest to biggest?
€ How can I quickly express all these figures as percentages?

A spreadsheet is a powerful tool for carrying out repeated

calculations. It works on the following principle – you simply
perform the first calculation and then a further command will
‘fill in’ all the other calculations automatically. This applies
whether you want to fill down a column or fill across a row.

Another advantage of a spreadsheet over pencil and paper is its

size. The grid that appears on the screen is actually only a window
on a much larger grid. In fact, most spreadsheets have hundreds
of rows and columns, should you need to use them. Movement
around the spreadsheet is also straightforward – you can easily
move to adjacent cells or to any other cell of your choice.

Using a spreadsheet

Although users are not always aware of it, many home computers
already have a spreadsheet package installed (it may be part of a

19
larger suite of office applications). If you have access to a
computer with a spreadsheet and want to make a start at using
it, then read on. In this section you will be guided through some
simple spreadsheet activities. By the way, in order to illustrate
spreadsheet principles, the examples presented here involve
simple calculations using only three or four numbers. Please bear
in mind that these are merely illustrative – the real power of a
spreadsheet is experienced when these techniques are applied,
at
a stroke, to rows or columns containing ten or fifty or a thousand
items of data.

There are several spreadsheet packages on the market and

fortunately their mode of operation has become increasingly
similar in recent years. However, your particular
spreadsheet application may not work exactly as described
here so you may need to be a little creative as you try the
activities below.

A very useful feature of any spreadsheet is that it can add columns

(or rows) of figures. This is done by entering a formula into an
appropriate cell. As you have seen, formulas are created by an
entry starting with ‘=’.

EXERCISE 11.1 Shopping list

Open the spreadsheet package and, if there isn’t already a blank

sheet open, create one by clicking on File and selecting New.

Using the mouse, click on cell A1 and type in the word ‘Milk’.
EXERCI

Notice that the word appears on the ‘formula bar’ near the top
of the screen.

Press Enter (the key may be marked Return or have a bent

arrow pointing left). This causes the word ‘Milk’ to be displayed
in cell A1.

Using this method, enter the data shown in Figure 11.5 into
your spreadsheet.

11. Spreadsheets 197

 Figure 11.5 A shopping list with prices.

EXERCISE 11.2 Finding totals using a formula

The formula for adding cell values together is:

=SUM()

Inside the brackets you enter the cells, or cell range, whose values
EXERCI

you want to add together.

Click in cell B4 and enter:

=SUM(B1:B3)

The colon (:) here indicates a range of cells. So ‘B1:B3’ means

cells B1, B2 and B3.

Insight
There are many useful shortcuts when entering a formula. Here is one I use when ente

=SUM(B1:B3)

19
Enter the first part of the formula, =SUM(

Now, rather than typing the range, B1:B3, simply select the cells corresponding to
automatically enter B1:B3 into the formula. All that remains is to type the close b

By the way, it doesn’t matter whether you type spreadsheet

commands in upper or lower case. So you could have typed:

=sum(b1:b3)

Press Enter and the formula in cell B4 produces the sum of the
values in cells B1 to B3. Next, enter the word TOTAL into
cell A4.

Your spreadsheet should now look like the one shown in

Figure 11.6.

Figure 11.6 Using the =sum() command.

Suppose that you gave the shopkeeper £10 to pay for these
items. How much change would you expect to get? Again, this
is something that the spreadsheet can find easily. Calculations
involving adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing require the
use of the corresponding operation keys, respectively marked

11. Spreadsheets 199

 +, –, * and /. Note that the letter ‘x’ cannot be used for
multiplication: you must use the asterisk, *. You will find
these keys, along with the number keys and ‘=’,
conveniently located on the numeric keypad, usually on the
right-hand side
of your keyboard (these keys are also available elsewhere on the
keyboard, but you may have to hunt them down, which takes
time).

EXERCISE 11.3 Calculating the change from £10

Enter the word ‘TENDERED’ in cell A5, the number 10 in cell B5

and the word ‘CHANGE’ in A6. Now enter a formula into B6 which
EXERCI

calculates the change.

Remember that the formula must begin with an equals

sign and it must calculate the difference between the
values in B5 and B4.

Now try a slightly more complicated shopping list, this time with
an extra column showing different quantities. You can enter this
into the previous spreadsheet, a little lower down.

Enter the data in Figure 11.7 into your spreadsheet, starting with
the first entry in cell A8.

Figure 11.7 Two columns of figures.

In order to calculate the overall total cost, you must first work out
the total cost of each item. For example, the total cost of the black
pens is 24 × £0.37.

20
Enter into cell D9 the formula:

=B9*C9

This gives a cost, for the pens, of £8.88. Now, you could repeat the
same procedure separately for the folders and the plastic tape but
there is an easier way, using a powerful spreadsheet feature called
‘fill down’. You ‘fill down’ the formula currently in D9 so that it
is copied into D10 and D11. The spreadsheet will automatically
update the appropriate references for these new cells.

Click on cell D9 (which currently displays 8.88) and release the

mouse button. Now move the cursor close to the bottom right
hand corner of cell D9 and you will see the cursor change shape (it
may change to a small black cross, for example). With the cursor
displaying this new shape, click and drag the mouse to highlight cells
D9:D11 and then release the mouse button. The correct costs for the
folders (£11.25) and the plastic tape (£2.72) should now be displayed
in cells D10 and D11 respectively. Now click on cell D10 and check
on the formula bar at the top of the screen that the cell references are
correct. Repeat the same procedure for cell D11. Magic!

EXERCISE 11.4 Summing up

With the costs in column D completed, you are now able to calculate EXERCISE

the total cost. As before, this requires an appropriate entry in D12

using the =SUM() command. Do this now; you should get a total bill
of £22.85.

Insight
Suppose you want to enter the sum of money £11.30 into the cell of a spreadshee
displayed as 11.3. This can be inconvenient. I find that, when displaying amounts
(Contd)

11. Spreadsheets 201

and cents, and so on. It also means that all the numbers are decimally aligned, which m

To do this, first select the column or row of cells that you wish to format. Then find

Number sequences on a spreadsheet

Having trouble remembering your 7 times table? Have no fear,

because the spreadsheet can generate these sorts of sequences
until the cows come home. We’ll start by creating, in column A,
the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, … and then, in column B, the
corresponding
numbers that form the 7 times table (7, 14, 21, 28, …) Open a new
worksheet (by clicking the ‘Sheet2’ tab at the bottom of the screen).
In cell A1 enter the number 1. In cell A2, enter the following
formula, which will display the value in A1, plus 1:

=A1+1

Select cell A2 once more and use the ‘fill down’ technique to fill this
formula down as far as cell A30. You should now see the numbers
1 to 30 in this column.

Select cell B1 and enter the following formula, which will seed the
7 times table:

=A1*7

Reselect this cell and fill down as far as cell B30. Your spreadsheet
should now look like the one in Figure 11.8.

20
Figure 11.8 The seven times table.

In mathematics, multiplication is sometimes referred to as ‘repeated

addition’. For example, in the case of the 7 times table, this can be
generated by repeatedly adding 7. As you will see from the next
exercise, this suggests an alternative way of generating the 7 times
table.

EXERCISE 11.5 Repeated addition

Enter the value 7 in cell C1.

EXERCI

Using a formula involving addition, generate in column C the

numbers in the 7 times table (i.e. column C should display the
same values
as column B, but based on a formula using addition rather
than multiplication).

11. Spreadsheets 203

 Percentages on a spreadsheet

As you have already seen, a spreadsheet really comes into its own
when you need to perform a large number of similar calculations.
Essentially, you only need to set up the calculation once, applied
to a particular cell value, and then use ‘fill down’ to apply the
calculation to every value in the column. Here is a simple example
involving calculating percentages. Return to the first spreadsheet
that you created in Exercise 11.1. Here you listed the cost of
milk, bread and eggs. Suppose that the shopkeeper decided to
increase the price of each of these items by between 20p and 30p,
as follows:

Item Old price (£) New price (£)

Milk 0.54 0.78
Bread 0.86 1.09
Eggs (×12) 2.28 2.53

When you are dealing with a higher-priced item such as a dozen

eggs, a 25p price increase may not seem too much, but increasing
the cost of a 54p bottle of milk by a similar amount is likely to
raise more objection. The point is that, for lower priced goods,
a 25p price increase represents a large percentage increase.
Using a spreadsheet you can perform percentage calculations
very easily and the grid format makes this information instantly
understandable. The calculation is explained below in two
stages: calculating the actual price increase for each item and
then working out what these increases are as a percentage of the
old price.

CALCULATING THE ACTUAL PRICE INCREASE

Follow these steps now on your spreadsheet. Enter the new prices
into column C as shown in Figure 11.9.

20
Select cell D1 and enter:

=C1–B1

Then press Enter. Select D1 again and fill down as far as cell D3.
Column D now displays the actual price increases, in pounds (£).

Figure 11.9 Finding the price rises.

WORKING OUT THE PERCENTAGE PRICE INCREASES

Select cell E1 and calculate the percentage price increase for milk
by entering:

=D1/B1*100

Select E1 again and fill down as far as cell E3. As shown in Figure
11.10, column E now displays the percentage price increases.

Figure 11.10 Finding the percentage increases.

11. Spreadsheets 205

 The percentage figures in column E are presented to many more
decimal places than would be appropriate to this example.
It is a simple spreadsheet task to round these numbers so that
they are displayed to, say, one decimal place or perhaps to the
nearest whole number. Essentially these price rises represented
44%, 27% and 11% of the original prices, respectively. This
confirms what was stated earlier – when expressed in terms of
percentage increases, a 24p price hike on a bottle of milk is much
more significant than a similar price increase on something more
expensive, such as a dozen eggs.

What else will a spreadsheet do?

This brief introduction has only really scratched the surface of

what can be done with a spreadsheet. As was mentioned at the
start of this chapter, the tiny data sets used here have been merely
illustrative and don’t properly reveal the power of a spreadsheet.
Suppose, on the other hand, you have a table with 200 rows of
data. Instead of having to perform 200 separate calculations you
only have to do one and you can ‘fill down’ the rest.

Once data have been entered into a spreadsheet, there are many
other options available for summarizing and analysing some of
the underlying patterns. For example, columns or rows can be
reordered or sorted either alphabetically or according to size.
Column and row totals can be inserted. As well as calculations
using the four operations +, –, × and ÷, which can be found
directly on the keyboard, a variety of other functions are also
available within the spreadsheet’s many menu options. These will
enable you to calculate means, modes, medians and much more,
at the touch of a button. The good news is that you won’t have to
remember the various commands needed to calculate these; they
can be pasted directly from the appropriate menu option (possibly
named ‘Function’ or something similar). An advantage of selecting
functions via the menu is that they will be made available in a
user-friendly way so that the command syntax is made apparent.

20
Most spreadsheets have powerful graphing facilities which also
allow you to select either all or some of the data and display
them as a piechart, barchart, scattergraph, line graph, and so on.
The detailed operation of the graphing facilities varies from one
spreadsheet package to another so they are not explained here.
However, if by now you have greater confidence with using a
spreadsheet, this is something that you might like to explore for
yourself.

Finally, if you are interested in mastering the most popular

spreadsheet application, Microsoft Excel (which is part of the
Microsoft Office suite), get yourself a copy of Teach Yourself
Excel.

Insight
If you don’t have a spreadsheet application on your computer, don’t despair. The
web-based spreadsheets that are freely available – all you have to do is get onto t

Answers to exercises for Chapter 11

EXERCISE 11.3

The required formula for cell B6, which completes the table below, is:

=B5–B4

Your final spreadsheet table should look like this.

11. Spreadsheets 207

 EXERCISE 11.4

You need to enter, in cell D12, the formula:

=SUM(D9:D11)

EXERCISE 11.5

You need to enter, in cell C2, the formula:

=C1+7

Then reselect cell C2 and fill down as far as cell C30.

EXERCISE 11.6

You need to enter, in cell D12, the formula:

=SUM(D9:D11)

20
 SUMMARY
€A spreadsheet is a computer tool that is used to set out
information in rows and columns on a screen.

€ Most home computers already have a spreadsheet package

installed.

€ They are useful for storing and processing data when repeated
calculations of a similar nature are required; essentially, you
only need to set up a calculation once.

€ Once you have input all of your data into a spreadsheet

you
can summarize, analyze and display the results in a variety
of ways.

11. Spreadsheets 209

 12
Diagnostic quiz
In this chapter you will learn:
• how much maths you have already learnt by reading this book!

Now that you have carefully read through every page of the
preceding 11 chapters (well, maybe you skipped a few pages!),
you might like to take stock of what you have learnt by trying
to answer the questions in this diagnostic quiz.

A quiz, or test, can be tackled in many different ways. If you get

every question right, you may feel good about yourself, but you
probably haven’t learnt anything from it. If you get all the questions
wrong, you will probably feel pretty depressed and unable to exploit
the learning opportunities offered by the experience. I hope that you
will be somewhere in-between. This quiz is not designed to trick
you or to make you feel depressed. Having said that, you are very
unlikely to find all the questions easy or to get every question right.

Here are some guidelines for tackling the quiz.

€ You should be prepared to use your calculator for every

question, except Question 1 where you are asked not to.
€ Read each question carefully before you do it, so that you
answer exactly the question that has been asked. For example,
if it asks you to write numbers in order from smallest to
largest, don’t give your answers from largest to smallest.

21
 € Don’t be afraid to look things up in earlier chapters of the
book if you have forgotten, say, how to convert miles into
kilometres. This isn’t a test to be taken under examination
conditions and you aren’t expected to remember all the
formulas and conversions in your head.

So, please give the quiz your very best shot. It is designed to take
about one hour, but be prepared to take longer than that if you
need to. When you have done all that you can do, then work
through my solutions at the end of the chapter. As you will see,
I have included detailed comments after the solutions in order
that you can ‘turn your errors into learning opportunities’.
For each one that you answered incorrectly, ask yourself the
following questions:

€ ‘Where and why have I gone wrong?’

€ ‘What can I learn from this?’

Good luck!

Quiz

1 Try these calculations without using your calculator.

a (i) 3 × 14 (ii) –5 – 17 (iii) –20 ÷ 4 (iv) 15 ÷ 75

b (i) 2 1 +1 1 (ii) 3 1 − 23 (iii) 5 1 ×3 (iv) 3 2 ×5

2
2 2 3
c (i) 82 (ii) 81 (iii) (32 + 42)

2 Express the following as decimal numbers.

a 20 + 7 + 3 + 6 + 4
10 100 1000
b 60 – 3 + 8 + 2 – 7
10 100 1000
62341
c 1000

12. Diagnostic quiz 211

 3 In the number 13.873, the ‘7’ represents the number of
hundredths. What does the ‘7’ represent in the following
numbers?
a 271.93
b 11.724
c 0.00117

4 Which is bigger:
a three-quarters or 70 per cent?
b 0.06 or one-twentieth?
c two-fifths or 0.5?
d 10 per cent or an eighth?
e 8 per cent or a tenth?

5 Using suitable metric units, estimate the following:

a the height of a chair seat from the floor
b the width of a cooker
c the weight of a newborn baby
d the distance from London to Birmingham
e the capacity of a doorstep milk bottle
f the weight of a letter
g the temperature inside a domestic refrigerator
h two teaspoonfuls of liquid
i the thickness of a £1 coin
j the temperature on a hot summer’s day in London.

6 Place the following in order of size from smallest to largest:

a 450 ml; half a litre; one pint; 75 centilitres
b 1 3 metres; 18 cm; 1.2 km; 300 mm
4
c half a week; four days; 95 hours; 0.01 of a year.

7 Using both imperial and metric units, estimate the following:

a the speed of a car travelling on the outside lane of a motorway
in the UK
b the speed of someone having a brisk walk
c the speed of a top 100 m runner
d the speed of a supersonic jet aircraft.

21
 8 A web-based store is holding a sale where each item is reduced
by 30%. However, although VAT must be included in the
payment, the prices they quote do not include VAT (at
17.5%). Postage and packing are free for payments over
£30. How much would you expect to pay for an item that
was originally quoted by the store (pre-sale) at £40?

9 The table below lists, in thousands of pounds

(£000), the voluntary cash donations to the top 10
UK charities in a particular year.

Name Income
(£000)
National Trust 78 745
Oxfam 58 972
RNLI 56 229
Save the Children Fund 53 866
Imperial Cancer Research Fund 48 395
Cancer Research Campaign 45 352
Barnardo’s 36 452
Help the Aged 33 141
Salvation Army 32 303
NSPCC 30 818

a Rewrite the ten incomes, rounded to the nearest £million.

b Using the rounded figures, sketch a horizontal barchart to
represent the earnings of the top five charities in a particular
year.
c Explain why a piechart would not be appropriate for depicting
the earnings of the top five charities.

10 In a certain year, an estimated 19.2 million

international visitors came to Britain and spent £9.2
billion. The piechart opposite shows the estimated
annual tourist spending, broken down by which part
of the world the tourists came from.

12. Diagnostic quiz 213

 Other
Australia/NZ
Africa

Middle East

Far East
Europe

North America

a From the piechart, estimate the annual spending by tourists

from Europe.
b From which one of the regions listed here did roughly
£2 billion of the tourist revenue come?
c If Britain were able to attract an extra 10 million visitors, how
much more revenue might it be able to generate? Make a note
of any assumptions that you have made in doing this calculation.

11 A survey of toy prices was taken in three large stores. The

prices (in £) of three toys are summarized below.

Hamleys John Lewis Toys Us

Toy A 12.99 9.25 9.29

Toy B 29.00 22.75 22.99
Toy C 7.99 5.95 4.97

On the basis of these prices:

a Which of the three stores seems to be the most expensive?

b Which store is the cheapest?

21
 c If you bought all three items at the cheapest price on offer,
how much would you have saved compared with buying them
at the most expensive price?
d From your answer to part c, calculate your total savings as
a percentage of the total cheapest price.

12 Petra earns £6200 per year doing part-time work. She pays
tax at the basic rate of 20% and her tax allowances are
£3750.
The annual amount that she has to pay in Tax, T, can be
calculated from the following formula.

T = 0.2 (I – A)

(where I represents her annual income and A represents her

tax allowances)

a Explain in your own words how, according to the tax formula,

annual tax on earnings is calculated.
b Calculate how much Petra will have to pay in tax:
(i) over the year
(ii) each week. (Give your answer to the nearest penny.)
c Assuming there are no other stoppages from her wages,
calculate how much Petra will receive each week after the
weekly tax bill has been paid. (Give your answer to the nearest
penny.)

Solutions to the quiz

1 a (i) 42 (ii) –22 (iii) –5 (iv) 1 or 0.2

5
b (i) 3 3 (ii) (iii) 16 (iv) 18 1
4 34 2 3
1
c (i) 64 (ii) 9 (or –9) (iii) 5 (or –5)

2 a 27.364
b 57.813
c 62.341

12. Diagnostic quiz 215

 3 a tens
b tenths
c hundred-thousandths

4 a three-quarters
b 0.06
c 0.5
d an eighth
e a tenth

5 For this question, you must get both the correct answer and
the correct units.
a about 45 cm (I will accept answers between 40 and 50 cm)
b about 60 cm, or 600 mm (I will accept answers between 50
and 70 cm)
c about 4 kg, or 4000 g (I will accept answers between 3 and 5 kg)
d about 175 km (I will accept answers between 150 and 200
km) e about 570 ml (I will accept answers between 500 and 600
ml) f about 40 g (I will accept answers between 10 and 60 g)
g between 0°C and 5°C
h about 12 ml (I will accept answers between 10 and 15
ml) i about 3 mm (I will accept answers between 2 and 4
mm) j about 30°C (I will accept answers between 25 and
35°C)

6 a 450 ml, half a litre, one pint, 75 centilitres

b 18 cm, 300 mm, 1 3 m, 1.2 km
4
c half a week, 0.01 of a year, 95 hours, four days.

7 Imperial Metric
a the speed of a car on 70–90 mph 110–145 km/h
the outside lane of a
motorway in the UK
b the speed of someone 3–5 mph 5–8 km/h
having a brisk walk
c the speed of a top 20–25 mph 30–40 km/h
100 m runner
d the speed of a above 760 mph above 1200 km/h
supersonic jet aircraft

21
8 Price including VAT = £40 × 1.175
Price after a 30% reduction = £40 × 1.175 × 0.7 =
£32.90. As payment exceeds £30, postage and
packing are free, so the total bill = £32.90

9 a The rounded incomes are as follows.

Name Income (rounded to

the nearest £million)
National Trust 79
Oxfam 59
RNLI 56
Save the Children Fund 54
Imperial Cancer Research Fund 48
Cancer Research Campaign 45
Barnardo’s 36
Help the Aged 33
Salvation Army 32
NSPCC 31

b Below is a horizontal barchart showing the earnings of the top

five charities in the year in question.

National Trust

Oxfam
Char

RNLI
Save the Children
Fund
Imperial Cancer
Research Fund

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Income (£m)

12. Diagnostic quiz 217

 c A piechart would not be appropriate because the combined
income from these five charities together, which would
correspond to the complete pie, does not represent anything
meaningful.

10 a Roughly £4.5 billion (I will accept anything between £4b and £5b.)
b North America
c Roughly £5 billion. This calculation assumes that the extra 10
million visitors spend at the same rate as do current visitors.

11 a Hamleys is the most expensive.

b John Lewis and Toys Us are very similar in price, with Toys Us
having the slight edge (a total price of £37.25, compared with
John Lewis’ £37.95).
c Most expensive prices = £12.99 + £29.00 + £7.99 = £49.98
Least expensive prices = £9.25 + £22.75 + £4.97 = £36.97
Saving = £49.98 – £36.97 = £13.01
d Percentage saving = £13.01/£36.97 × 100 = 35.2%

12 a The annual tax bill, T, can be found as follows.

Subtract the tax allowances, A, from annual income,
I, and multiply the result by 0.2.
b (i) £490
(ii) £9.42
c £109.81

Detailed comments on the solutions

QUESTION 1

a (i) 3 × 14
This can be written out and calculated as
follows: 14
× 3
42 Solution 42

21
 (ii) Adding and subtracting with negative numbers can
be confusing and it is sometimes a good idea to
write the calculation out on a number line, as
follows:

17 steps to the left

End here Start here

–25 –20 –15 –10 –5 0

You start at –5 and then subtract 17. In other words, you

move 17 steps to the left. This gives the result of –22.
(iii) –20 ÷ 4
Here you are dividing a negative number (–20) by a
positive one (4). First you must decide on the sign of the
answer (i.e. whether the answer is positive or negative).
Because the two numbers are of different signs, the result
must be negative, so write down the negative sign, –.
Next you do the calculation with the numbers.
20 ÷ 4 means 204, giving the result 5.
So the solution is –5.
(iv) 15 ÷ 75
This can be written as 15.
7
The fraction can now be simplified to the simplest equivalent
fraction by dividing the numerator and the denominator by
15, giving the solution
5
1
or 0.2.
A common mistake here is to do the division the wrong
way round, giving 75 = 5.
1

b (i) 2 + 1
1 1
2 4
First add the whole numbers: 2 + 1 = 3.
Next, add the fraction parts: 1 + 1 . Remember that, in order
2
to add fractions with different denominators, you must
rewrite them as equivalent fractions which have the same
denominator, which in this case is easiest done using
quarters. So, the fractions become 2 + 1 = 3
4 4
Finally, add the fraction total to the whole number total.
Solution: 3 + 3 = 3 3
12. Diagnostic quiz 219
 4 4

22
 (ii) 3 1 – 2 3
2 4
First subtract the whole numbers: 3 – 2 = 1.
Write down what still has to be calculated: 1 1 – 3
2 4
Notice that you can’t just subtract the fraction parts
directly because the fraction being subtracted (three-
quarters) is bigger than the fraction it is being subtracted
from (a half). The way around this is to borrow the whole
number part, the 1, and turn it into quarters along with the
fraction parts, as follows.
Solution: 1 1 − 3 = 6 − 3 = 3
2 4 4 4 4
(iii) 5 1 × 3
Multiply
2 each part separately by 3 and then add the
results together.
5 × 3 = 15
2 × 3 = 12
1 1

15 + 1 1 = 16 1
2 2
(iv) 3 2 × 5
3
Multiply each part separately by 5 and then add the
results together.
3 × 5 = 15
2 10 1
3× 5 = 3 = 3 3
15 + 3 1 = 18 1
3 3

c (i) 82, or 8 squared, means 8 × 8 = 64

(ii) 81, or the square root of 81, means finding the number
which, when squared, gives 81. The most obvious answer is
9, because it satisfies this condition – i.e. 92 = 81. However, if
you give the question a little further thought you may notice
that there is another possible answer, namely, –9. You can
check this by squaring –9, thus:
(–9)2 = –9 × –9 = 81
(iii) (32 + 42)
First, work out what is inside the brackets:
(32 + 42) = 9 + 16 = 25.

Next, find the square root of 25. Using the same reasoning
as in part (ii), this gives the two possible solutions, 5 or –5.

12. Diagnostic quiz 221

 QUESTION 2

a 20 + 7 + 3 + 6 + 4
10 100 1000
These numbers have been arranged in a familiar pattern –
tens, units, tenths, hundredths, and so on. Thus the number
can be written down directly as 27.364.
b 60 – 3 + 108 +1002 – 7
1000
This question is similar to part a but slightly complicated by the
two values which are subtracted. There is no single correct way of
doing this, but my approach was to break it down as follows:
60 – 3 = 57
2 7 20 7 13 1 3
100 − 1000= −1000 =1000 =100 +1000
1000
Solution: 57 + 8 + 1 + 3 = 57.813
62341 10 100
c 1000
Division by 1000 has the effect of moving the decimal place three
places to the left. The number 62341 has an invisible decimal point
after the 1 (i.e. ‘62341.’)
Thus, 62341 = 62.341
1

QUESTION 3

The only comment here is that you need to keep in mind the
sequence of decimal places, which are as follows:
… thousands hundreds tens units • tenths hundredths thousandths …

QUESTION 4

It is difficult to compare numbers written as fractions and the best

strategy is to convert the fractions to either decimals or percentages.

a Converting three-quarters to a percentage:

Three-quarters as a percentage is 3 × 100 = 75%, which is larger
4
than 70%. Incidentally, if you were unable to find three-
quarters of 100 in your head, use your calculator, as follows:
Press 3  4  100 

b Converting one-twentieth to a decimal:

One-twentieth as a decimal is 1 = 0.05, which is smaller than 0.06.
2
Alternatively, press 1  20 

22
c Converting two-fifths to a decimal:
Two-fifths as a decimal is 2 = 0.4, which is smaller than 0.5.
5
Alternatively, press 2  5 

d Converting an eighth to a percentage:

An eighth as a percentage is 1 × 100 = 12 1 %, which is larger
2
than 10%. 8

Alternatively, press
 8  100 
1

e Converting a tenth to a percentage:

A tenth as a percentage is 1 × 100 = 10%, which is larger
1
than 8%.
Alternatively, press  10  100 
1

QUESTION 5

There are no comments on this question except to suggest that

you could develop your estimation skills by guessing some
measures around the house, then getting out a tape measure,
weighing scales, thermometer and so on, and checking how good
your guesses were. It is surprising how quickly these skills do
improve with practice.

QUESTION 6

As is the case for all questions about comparison of measures, the

key thing is to convert all the measurements to the same units.
Once this has been done, placing them in order of size becomes a
trivial task.
Suitable conversions are set out below for the measures, written
here in the order in which they were originally given in the question.

a 450 ml; 500 ml; 568 ml; 750 ml

b 175 cm; 18 cm; 120 000 cm; 30 cm
c 84 hours; 96 hours; 95 hours; 87.6 hours.

QUESTION 7

12. Diagnostic quiz 223

 As with most estimation questions, there is no single correct
method, as each person draws on their own past knowledge
and experience.

22
a My experience of motorway driving is that traffic on the outside
lane seems to travel at around 80 mph (most drivers in the
outside lane tend to break the speed limit of 70 mph unless there
happens to be a police vehicle in the vicinity). So my first
estimate here will be in these imperial units of miles per hour
and then I will use my  
calculator (pressing 70  8 5 ) to convert to the metric
equivalent, thus:
70 mph = 70 × 8 km/h = 112 km/h. I rounded this to 110 km/h.
5
90 mph = 90 × 8 km/h = 144 km/h. I rounded this to 145 km/h.
5

b As with the previous part, I know from experience that 4 mph

represents a fairly brisk walk, so I allowed a range of between 3
and 5 mph. The conversions to km/h were done as above in part
a.

c This time I had no idea how fast a top sprinter could run, so I
decided to do a calculation instead. Again, drawing on my past
experience, I know that a good time for the 100 m is around 10
seconds. These seemed to be convenient numbers, so I chose to
work in metric units this time and converted to imperial
afterwards.
In 10 seconds, the sprinter travels 100 m
In 1 minute, the sprinter would travel 100 × 6 m
In 1 hour, the sprinter would travel
100 × 6 × 60 m = 100×6×60 km.
1
Pressing the calculator sequence
100  6  60  1000 
gives the answer 36. In other words, the sprinter’s speed is 36 km/h.

An aside on cancelling out fractions

There is an alternative method of working out this last answer which involves ‘

the case of the fraction 100 × 6 ×1000

60 , it means dividing out the tens
and hundreds. This has been shown in separate stages below.
(Contd)
12. Diagnostic quiz 225
 First, divide top and bottom of the fraction 1by 100, giving the following:
100 × 6 × 60
1000
10

There is still further scope for cancelling, so divide16the 60 on the top and the remain
100 × 6 × 60
1000
10 1

This can be tidied up and simplified as 1×6×6

So, the result, = 36
follows:as before, is 36 km/h. Again, if you wanted1to use your calculator for this ca
601000.

 
 

On the basis of this figure of 36 km/h, I allowed you to mark

yourself correct if your answer fell within the range 30–40 km/h.

(Incidentally, in practice no sprinter could possibly sprint at

this speed for an hour, but calculating someone’s speed in
mph or kmph does not necessarily imply that they continue to
travel for an hour, even though my wording above suggests
that they do.)

Finally, I can convert to mph as follows.

30 km/h = 30 × 5 mph = 18.75 mph. I rounded this to 20 mph.
8
Alternatively, press 30  5  8 

40 km/h = 40 × 5 mph = 25 mph, which required no further rounding.

8
Alternatively, press 40  5  8 

d This again was a fact that I happened to have stored away in

my brain. And, having been brought up from childhood with
imperial units, I remembered that the speed of sound is around
760 mph.
If you had absolutely no idea, try looking up ‘speed of sound’
in a web search engine. There is no need for any greater
accuracy than this because the speed of sound varies,
22
depending on such

12. Diagnostic quiz 227

 things as the nature of the gas that it is passing through, the
air temperature at the time, and so on. As before, the
conversion to km/h is easy with a calculator.
Press 760  8  5 =
I rounded the calculator result of 1216 km/h to 1200 km/h.
Supersonic aircraft travel at speeds greater than 760 mph or
1200 km/h. But clearly there needs to be a sensible upper limit
to your answer – say, 2000 mph or 3000 km/h.

QUESTION 8

There are no additional comments on this question.

QUESTION 9

There are no additional comments on this question.

QUESTION 10

a The task here is to try to estimate what fraction each slice is of

the total. You can see that the slice corresponding to Europe
takes up almost half of the pie, so the annual spending
represented by this slice would be almost half of £9.2b, or
roughly £4.5b.

b A spending of £2b out of a total spending of £9.2b represents

the following fraction of the pie: 2 .
9
On my calculator, this gives a decimal value of just over 0.2, or
roughly one fifth. So I am looking for a slice which is slightly bigger
than one fifth of the pie. Only North America fits the bill here. (If you
imagine four more slices the same size as North America, it seems
reasonable that five of these slices would together make a complete
pie.)

c This final part is an exercise in proportion. We know that

19.2 million visitors spent £9.2b.
So, 1 million visitors should spend £9.2b.
1
Then 10 million visitors should spend £9.2b × 10.
1
On the calculator, press 9.2  19.2 × 10  giving the result
4.7916666, which I rounded to £5b.
22
 QUESTION 11

a Since the prices in Hamleys were the highest for each of the
three toys listed, this first question was easy to answer.

b There isn’t an obvious method for answering this question, but I

decided to calculate the total price of all three items and select
as the cheapest the store with the smallest total, which was
Toys
Us. However, the price differences between John Lewis and Toys
Us are so small that John Lewis could possibly come out
cheapest if three different toys were chosen. Based only on data
from three
toys, it is impossible to come up with a clear answer to this question.

c and d There are no additional comments on these parts.

QUESTION 12

a There are no additional comments on this part.

b (i) First you must subtract Petra’s tax allowances from her annual
income. On the calculator, this is done as
6200  3750  giving the result 2450.
Next multiply the result by 0.2. There is no need to re-enter
the 2450 as it is already on the calculator display, so simply
press  0.2 
(ii) The previous result of £490 should still be on your calculator
display. This is the annual tax bill. To calculate this in weekly
terms you must divide by 52, so simply press  52  ,
giving the result 9.4230769. I rounded this to the nearest
penny, giving £9.42.

c Petra’s weekly earnings net of tax can be calculated as follows.

Her annual earnings net of tax: Press 6200  490 
Her weekly earnings net of tax: Press  52 
giving the result 109.80769, which I rounded to the nearest penny,
giving £109.81.

12. Diagnostic quiz 229

Part two
Mathematics
in action
(appendices)
This page intentionally left blank
 Appendix A
Calculating a best buy
Whether you are buying potato crisps, rice or shampoo, most
supermarket purchases are made available in packs of different
sizes and prices. Sometimes you choose the size for practical
reasons – here are some examples.

€ ‘The larger toothpaste tubes always fall out of our bathroom

mug so I tend to buy the smallest one.’
€ ‘Inour household a small pack of cornflakes lasts about two
days so I always buy the largest one.’

But in many situations you simply want to buy the size which gives
the best value for money.
ExampleCornflakes

Cornflakes
Cornflakes
Cornflakes

Net weight 750 g Net weight 1 kg

Net weight 500 g

£1.08£1.49£2.04

This one’s the cheapest …This one’s the dearest … but it contains the leastbu
amountamount

Appendix A. Calculating a best buy 229

 Note: You can’t compare the prices directly because each packet
contains different amounts of cornflakes. You need to find a way of
comparing like with like. There are two possible methods.

For each packet:

A calculate the weight of cornflakes per penny and then choose

the packet which works out at the largest weight per penny
B calculate the cost in pence of cornflakes per gram and then
choose the packet which works out cheapest per gram.

Note: In Method A you end up choosing the packet which

produces the largest answer to your calculation, while Method B
involves choosing the packet which produces the smallest answer.
Remember that your calculator will do the arithmetic. All you have
to do is three things, summarized by the letters DPI:

€ D Decide what calculations to do and understand why you

are doing them
€ P Press the right buttons in the correct order
€ I Interpret the answers sensibly.

Method A Calculating the weight per penny

D The calculation needed here is division; the weights divided by

the price of each packet. To avoid confusion, it makes sense to
use the same units for weight and price for each packet. So the
weights will be measured in grams and the price in pence.

P The calculation is set out in the table below.

Size Price (p) Weight (g) Grams per p (to 3 figures)

Small 108 500 500 ÷ 108 = 4.63
Medium 149 750 750 ÷ 149 = 5.03
Large 204 1000 1000 ÷ 204 = 4.90

I Choose the size with the largest number of grams per penny, which
in this case is the medium packet with 5.03 grams per penny.

23
Method B Calculating the price per gram

D As with Method A, the calculation required is division, but this

time the division is the other way round – price divided by weight.

P The calculation is set out in the table below.

SizePrice (p)Weight (g)Pence per g (to 3 figures)

Small 108 500 108 ÷ 500 = 0.216

Medium 149 750 149 ÷ 750 = 0.199
Large 204 1000 204 ÷ 1000 = 0.204

I This time we are looking for the size with the cheapest price per
gram. As before, we select the medium packet with 0.199 pence
per gram.

Points to note in value-for-money calculations

€ Itdoesn’t matter which method you use (calculating weight

per penny or price per gram). You just need to be clear which
one you have chosen and make sure to use the same method
throughout.
€ Ensure that the units of measure match up – don’t calculate
one pack size priced in pence and another in pounds.
€ Whichever method you adopt determines whether you will
choose the packet whose calculation yields the largest value
or the smallest value. Remember that you want to pay small
pence and you want to receive large quantities. Thus:

For the calculation … you want … so you choose…

grams per p large grams the largest one

pence per g small pence the smallest one

Appendix A. Calculating a best buy 231

 € We have only looked at a simple example where the goods
being compared were identical in every respect except size and
price. For most purchases, there are many other factors to
take into account when deciding on value for money and it is
altogether more complicated than these calculations suggest.
For example, you may also wish to take account of quality,
durability, prestige, recyclability, and so on; all factors which
are much more difficult to measure and calculate with.
€ Unit pricing is a practice followed by most supermarkets.
As well as including on the label of each item the price and
the size (weight or capacity, as appropriate), the ‘unit price’ is
also included. This allows you to compare the relative value of
products across different pack sizes. Here are some examples.

price

unit price

Notice that when supermarkets give a unit price, they usually

reduce the price to a suitable unit, not necessarily to a single
gram or pound. In the examples above, the basic unit for
sardines was taken to be 100 g, while that for lamb steaks is
both lb and kg. The reason for this is to avoid having to use
prices written as awkward decimal numbers that people find
hard to make sense of. Note also that the meat has been unit
priced in both imperial and metric units for the customer’s
convenience.

23
 Appendix B
Reading the 24-hour clock

Analogue and digital

The world is divided into two types of device – analogue and

digital. Analogue devices are so called because of their mechanical
way of working: the mechanism is the device. For example, a
vinyl record player produces musical sound in a mechanical way
in that, as the record spins, the needle moves about inside the
grooves. That movement is then translated into sound. Contrast
that with digital sound where a laser reading device merely scans
a long list of numbers (i.e. digits) encoded in the compact disc or
digital audio tape. It is these numbers that are then transformed
into sound.

a record is analogue a CD is digital

Appendix B. Reading the 24-hour clock 233

 Another example of this analogue and digital distinction is with
clocks and watches.

an analogue clock a digital clock

The old-fashioned analogue clocks tend to have a circular face

numbered 1 to 12 and hands that sweep round, marking out the
time. As with the record player, there is a moving mechanism that
physically marks out a circular path which we interpret in terms of
time passing. One complete circuit of the clock face by the hour hand
represents the passing of 12 hours. Two circuits of the clock face by
the hour hand gives a full day of 24 hours. We use common sense to
distinguish between morning time (a.m.) and afternoon time (p.m.).

Digital clocks and watches, on the other hand, simply produce

numbers. These numbers can be organized in 12-hour cycles, in which
case the letters a.m. or p.m. are shown on the display. Alternatively,
most digital clocks can be set to display time in cycles of 24 hours.
The chart below shows how 12-hour and 24-hour times are related.

12-hour
time a.m. p.m.

0 a.m. 4 a.m. 8 a.m. 12 noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m. 12 p.m.

0.00 4.00 8.00 12.00 16.00 20.00 24.00

24-hour time

As you can see, for the first 12 hours in a day (i.e. during the
a.m. period) the 12-hour and 24-hour times are exactly the same.
However, after 12 noon, the times roll back to zero on the 12-hour
system, whereas they simply continue (13, 14, 15, …) on the
24- hour system.

23
Converting from 12-hour time to 24-hour time

Remember that 24-hour time is a measure of how long it is since

the previous midnight. So:

€ …if it is a.m., the 24-hour and the 12-hour times are the
same, and
€ …if it is p.m., you have to add 12 hours.

Here are some examples.

12-hour time a.m. or p.m.? + 12 hours? 24-hour time

3.15 a.m. a.m. 3.15
6.44 p.m. p.m. + 12.00 18.44
4.52 p.m. p.m. + 12.00 16.52
5.00 a.m. a.m. 5.00
11.07 p.m. p.m. + 12.00 23.07

Converting from 24-hour time to 12-hour time

Remember that any time after 12 noon is p.m., and for afternoon
times the 12-hour clock rolls back to zero. This means that, if the
24-hour time is greater than 12 (i.e. if it is a p.m. time), you must
subtract 12 to find the 12-hour time.

Here are some examples.

24-hour time more than 12? – 12 hours? 12-hour time

13.55 yes – 12.00 1.55 p.m.
16.40 yes – 12.00 4.40 p.m.
4.08 no 4.08 a.m.
11.50 no 11.50 a.m.
21.33 yes – 12.00 9.33 p.m.

Appendix B. Reading the 24-hour clock 235

 Finally, here are some diagrams to help you sort out what to do
when converting between 12-hour and 24-hour time.

If the time is p.m.,

add 12 hours;
otherwise
it is the same

12-hour time 24-hour time

If the hours are greater

than 12, subtract 12
and call it p.m.;
otherwise it is the
same time, a.m.

From 12-hour to
From 24-hour to
24-hour time
12-hour time

START START

Is the time more than 12.00?

NO NO
Is the time p.m.?
YES

YES

add 12 hours subtract 12 hours

this is the this is the

24-hour time 12-hour time

23
Why?

Why can’t we stick to the good old-fashioned 12-hour clocks?

The chief virtue of the 24-hour system is that it automatically does

away with the need to specify whether the time is a.m. or p.m.
For most everyday purposes, this may not seem very important,
but when consulting train, bus and airline timetables, it makes
sense to use a system which is not prone to confusion. It has been
estimated that, over the first ten years of the introduction of the
24-hour clock in their timetables, rail staff costs fell by nearly
£8 million in today’s terms, due to dispensing with the need to
pursue interminable conversations with customers along the lines
of, ‘Excuse me. Is that 4 o’clock a.m. or 4 o’clock p.m.?’ etc.

(Actually, I just made that last ‘fact’ up, but you get the general
point!)

Appendix B. Reading the 24-hour clock 237

 Appendix C
Bus and railway timetables
Bus, railway and aeroplane timetables are invariably written in
terms of the 24-hour clock. Before proceeding with this appendix,
make sure you understand and can use the 24-hour clock (see
Appendix B on page 234).

Two extracts from a railway timetable are shown here. Notice that
both timetables are labelled Table 5 but each one has a network
map above it showing the direction of travel. The second timetable
shows the journey to London Euston (which will be the outward
journey for our purposes) while the first timetable covers the return
journey from Euston station.

It is a Tuesday morning and you are in Wilmslow. You have

arranged to meet a friend in a cafe in London at 12 noon. You
should allow about half an hour to travel by tube from Euston
station to get to the cafe. You want to be home by 7 p.m. that
evening (you live about 45 minutes from Wilmslow station).

Now try to answer the following questions.

a What train should you catch if you want to be certain of

arriving at the cafe before your friend? How long are
you likely to have to wait at the cafe if you catch this
train?
b What is the most sensible train to catch?
D Is this a direct service or will you have to change trains?
D If you have to change, where are you likely to have to change
and how long may you have to wait for that connection?
D At what time would you estimate arriving at the cafe?

23
Appendix C. Bus and railway timetables
Source: A Guide to Intercity Services © British Railways

239
24
Source: A Guide to Intercity Services © British Railways
 c What train will you catch to return home? Will you be able to
eat on this train?
d What are the train journey times each way?

SOLUTION

a For the outward journey, you need the second timetable. The 0727,
which gets into London Euston at 0944, should get you to the cafe by
1015 – an hour and three-quarters before the agreed time, so not very
satisfactory!

b It’s a bit tight, but you should just about make your assignation if you
catch the next train from Wilmslow, the 0850, getting into London
Euston at 1136.
D The 0850 departure is not a direct service. You can tell this
because of the light printing of the departure time of 0850. As you
can see from the explanation at the bottom of the page, ‘Light
printed timings indicate connecting service’, so this will require a
change of trains.
D In this case you will have to change at Crewe, which is the next
main station. Note that the times 0850 (in light printing) and
0925 (in bold) are the departure times from Wilmslow and
Crewe, respectively. Since you will be changing at Crewe, you will
expect to arrive there some time before the 0925 departs. You
can make an intelligent guess at your arrival time in Crewe by
looking at a previous column of figures. Notice that the 0536
from Wilmslow gets into Crewe at 0557, suggesting a journey
time of 21 minutes. Assuming the 0850 travels at the same
speed, it should get into Crewe by 0911, allowing you ample time
(14 minutes, in fact) to make your connection on the 0925.
D This should get you to the cafe just a few minutes after 12 noon.

c To choose the homeward train, you need to work backwards from when
you want to get home, as follows:
Getting home by 7 p.m. means arriving at Wilmslow station by
6.15 p.m., i.e. by 1815. According to the first timetable, there is an
ideal train which departs from London Euston at 1600 and gets into

Appendix C. Bus and railway timetables 241

 Wilmslow at 1808. Note: According to the codes at the top of the
column, this train is a First Class Pullman (called the Manchester
Pullman – see note A on the timetable) with a Silver Standard, but
with no Restaurant facilities. So, you will be able to eat on this train,
but not in high style!

d The journey times are shown in the table below

Wilmslow 0850
DepartArriveJourney London Euston
time 1136 2 hours 46 mins
London Euston 1600 Wilmslow 1808 2 hours 08 mins

So, the return journey is quicker by some 38 minutes.

You may have gone wrong calculating journey times on your

calculator. For example, the outward journey ran from 0850 to 1136,
so pressing 1136  0850  gives 286 (i.e. 2 hours and 86 mins)
and not 246 (or 2 hours 46 mins) as shown above.

Calculating journey times cannot easily be done on a calculator.

The complication is that there are 60, not 100, minutes in one hour.
There are many commonsense ways of tackling this problem. Here is
how I worked out the journey time between 0850 and 1136.

€ First, I added ten minutes to 0850 to bring it up to the next exact

hour (0900). This shortens the journey time by ten minutes, but I’ll
add these on later.
€ Next, I calculated the journey time from 0900 to 1136 – this
is easy to do in your head, the answer being 2 hours 36 minutes.
€ Finally, I need to remember that I shortened the journey time by
ten minutes, so I must now add these on.

So, 2 hours 36 mins + 10 mins gives the answer, 2 hours 46 minutes.

24
 Appendix D
Checking the supermarket bill
Most people simply haven’t got the time or the energy to check
their weekly supermarket bill item by item. In general, we tend
to assume that the machine has got it right. Where errors occur,
sometimes they are to the customer’s advantage and sometimes to
the store’s advantage, but it is likely that, taken over the long term,
errors tend to average themselves out.

Typically, the item will be scanned at the checkout with a barcode

reader. Occasionally the barcode is read incorrectly but barcodes
have a built-in ‘checksum’ that bleeps when there is an error – this
is explained in Appendix K. However, errors do occur, and it is
worth being awake to that possibility at the checkout to avoid it
costing you money. The key thing is to know when to check the bill
in detail and how to do so if you have to. Here are a few guidelines.

What does my bill usually come to?

First of all, it is helpful to know roughly what your bill is likely to

come to. If you do a regular weekly shopping at the same store,
you may be able to do this with some accuracy. For example, your
typical bill may come to, say, around £55, so anything less than
£40 or more than £70 in a particular week ought to make you
suspicious.

Appendix D. Checking the supermarket bill 243

 Are there any unusual and expensive items this week?

If you have bought some untypical and expensive items (for

example, alcohol, or kitchen or electrical goods), make an estimate
of these and add them to your typical bill. That way you will know
what you can expect your bill to come to, roughly.

How many items did I buy?

Most supermarket receipts state the total number of goods bought.

In a recent large shopping spree for groceries, I spent about £90,

P PERKINS PLC
THE
BUTTS
WARWICK
CV21 3FL
Telephone no. 01926 334215
£
Custard powder 0.85
Apple jce 2L 1.69
PP County 1.19
spread
PP H-gran stick 0.56
Baking potatoes 1.98
PP Earl Grey tea 0.69
PP Earl Grey tea 0.69
PP Lentils 500g 0.59
Orange jce 1L 1.89
PP Eggs small 0.77
Baked beans 0.23
11 Bal Due 11.13
4356 601364 645355431

24
having bought 73 items. This works out at just over £1 per item.
For most supermarket bills, an average of about £1 per item is fairly
typical and using this fact might provide you with a quick check that
the overall bill is in line with the contents of your trolley. Thus,
buying, say, 40 items, I might expect my bill to be around
£50–£60. This strategy might allow you to pick up situations where
£69 was recorded instead of 69p, say, for a bag of apples.

Can I do a quick mental check of the bill?

If there is a huge number of items on your bill – as many as 73,

for example – it isn’t realistic to do a mental check. However, if
there are, say, only 11 or 12 items, then this is perfectly possible.
There is no single correct method of rounding – you could round
to the nearest 10 pence or 50 pence. The method below is more
approximate and is based on rounding the prices to the nearest £.

The method is based on looking at the pence part of the price.

Where the amount of the pence is 50p or more, round up to the
next whole number of pounds; otherwise ignore the pence, which
has the effect of rounding down the pounds. For example, the first
item, which is 85p, will be rounded up to £1 because the pence
(85p) is greater than 50p. On the other hand, a sum of £1.19 is
rounded down to £1 because the pence (19p) is less than 50p.

Adopting this procedure, the costs of the 11 items are rounded as

follows:

Item Actual price (£) Rounded price

(£)
Custard powder 0.85 ‹ 1
Apple jce 2L 1.69 ‹ 2
PP County spread 1.19 ‹ 1
PP H-gran stick 0.56 ‹ 1
Baking potatoes 1.98 ‹ 2
(Contd)

Appendix D. Checking the supermarket bill 245

 Item Actual price (£) Rounded price
(£)
PP Earl Grey tea 0.69 ‹ 1
PP Earl Grey tea 0.69 ‹ 1
PP Lentils 500g 0.59 ‹ 1
Orange jce 1L 1.89 ‹ 2
PP Eggs small 0.77 ‹ 1
Baked beans 0.23 ‹ 0
Rounded total £13

In this particular case, the rounding method has produced an

answer which is too high – by roughly £2. However, the object
of the exercise has been to produce a rough ‘order of magnitude’
answer to check whether the total is more or less correct, rather
than to get a precise answer.

24
 Appendix E
Understanding a shop receipt
If you’ve ever fancied yourself as a latter-day Poirot or Sherlock
Holmes, you could do a lot worse than to practise your skills
uncovering the hidden mysteries of a lowly shop receipt. You may
be surprised to discover how much you can tell about a person
simply by rummaging around in their discarded plastic bags and
fishing out the sordid details of their last shopping transaction –
which might look something like the receipt below…

S DEVLIN PLC THE SHIRES PARK DODDINGTON CV11 4RR

TELEPHONE NO. 01926 435268
SALES VOUCHER: CUSTOMER’S COPY

0873456 D/WASH LIQ 3.29

LEM
0786543 TULIPS 2.95
2 BAL DUE 6.24
CASH 10.00
CHANGE 3.76
503 24 1032 16:26 24DEC08
VAT NO. 534 5644 89
THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH DEVLIN
Please retain your receipt

Appendix E. Understanding a shop receipt 247

 As you can see, this piece of evidence tells its own story about
the transaction that took place. You might like to reconstruct
part of that story, sorting out in your mind the objective facts
involved – the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘what’ of the transaction.
To help you, try completing the blanks in the police file below.

For the completed file see opposite page.

Police file
We might like to go a little further here and speculate what sort of
We have reason to believe that the suspect entered the premises of
person this was. Note the date, which was Christmas Eve. Now
(shop) at (address) in
most people who celebrate this festival are still frantically buying
the town of on the afternoon of
the basics on Christmas Eve (in a few homes the turkey, crackers,
in the year . At precisely , items were
balloons, presents, etc. have still to be bought). This individual has
purchased, namely a and a ,
clearly got the whole Christmas thing totally under control if he
costing
or she
£ is making anda£special triprespectively.
for tulips and
A £dishwasher
note liquid
was on
Christmas Eve! Also, assuming that they own the dishwasher in
question, you might suppose that they aren’t exactly in the bottom
income bracket.

In short, one has a picture of someone who is reasonably well off,

certainly well organized, who wants to relax this Christmas with
no plans to be hand-washing dishes in the sink!

24
Completed police file from Appendix E

We have reason to believe that the suspect entered the premises

of Devlin’s shop at The Shires Park in the town of Doddington on
the afternoon of 24th Dec in the year 2008. At precisely 4.26
p.m., 2 items were purchased, namely a bottle of dishwasher
liquid and a bunch of tulips, costing £3.29 and £2.95 respectively.

A £10 note was submitted to the cashier and £3.76 in change

was received.

Appendix E. Understanding a shop receipt 249

 Appendix F
Checking the VAT
Value added tax (VAT) is charged on many of the goods bought in
the UK. For many years, VAT in the UK was at a rate of 17.5%.
What this means is that, for every £100 net value, the VAT charge
is £17.50, bringing the total to £117.50. In other words:

This is what the customer pays

Net value + VAT = Gross value
£100.00 + £17.50 = £117.50

Below is a simplified receipt from a plumbing centre where I

recently bought the wherewithal to install a ventilator into an
external wall of my kitchen. (In the event I failed disastrously to
complete the job without professional help, but that’s another
story!)

Catalogue Qty. Description VAT Price Total

No. Ordered net

800160 1 Stadium BM720 17.5 28.13 28.13

black hole
ventilator
602047 1 Supaset rapid set 17.5 4.46 4.46
cement – 3kg
Subtotal 32.59
VAT (17½%) 5.70
Total 38.29

25
Let’s check that the basic arithmetic is correct.

a Is the subtotal of £32.59 correct?

From the right-hand column, we can see that the two items cost
£28.13 and £4.46, respectively. Pressing 28.13  4.46  on the
calculator confirms the answer given in the subtotal box, £32.59.

b Is the VAT of £5.70 correct?

Notice that in this receipt the net totals are added first and
then the overall VAT is calculated at the end. In order to check
the VAT, you must find 17.5% of 32.59. As was explained in
Chapter 6, this is found by converting 17.5% to its decimal form
(giving 0.175) and multiplying this by 32.59, thus:
0.175  32.59  , giving an answer 5.70325.
Rounding this answer to the nearest penny gives the result 5.70,
i.e. £5.70, which confirms the value in the VAT box.

c Is the total of £38.29 correct?

Adding the net subtotal and the VAT should give the overall
gross total, thus:  5.70  , confirming the final bill
32.59 of £38.29.

Some additional questions

Surely it’s not necessary to work out the VAT on its own if I simply
want to check that the overall bill, inclusive of VAT, is correct?

You are quite correct – it is not necessary to find the VAT first and
then add it on! The VAT-inclusive bill can be found directly by
multiplying the net bill by 1.175, thus:

1.175  32.59 

Again, after rounding, you should find that this calculation

confirms the final bill of £38.29.

Appendix F. Understanding a shop receipt 251

 My calculator has a percentage key marked on one of the buttons.
How can I use it to work out VAT?

Unfortunately not all calculator percentage keys are designed to

work in the same way. Indeed, some seem to operate in a most
bizarre way! You may need to consult your calculator manual
to check this for yourself. However, here are some suggestions
for things to try. Incidentally, if you are trying things out on a
calculator to see how it works, choose simple numbers! I suggest
that you try to add, say, 8% on to 100, knowing that the answer
should be 108.

Try pressing these sequences and see what you get

100  8 %

100  8 % 

100  8 %

100  8 % 

On some calculators you will simply not get a satisfactory result

to this calculation. For example, on one of my calculators, the %
key has been set up solely to convert fractions to percentages, thus:

3  5 % produces the answer 60, because the fraction 3 = 60%.

5

Overall, then, the percentage key is a bit of a mixed blessing! It may

be useful in VAT calculations, but, provided you understand how to
convert a percentage to a decimal, you really don’t need such a key.

25
 Appendix G
Cooking with figures
As a child living in Ireland, I remember watching my
grandmother baking soda bread on a griddle. I asked her how
she did it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you start by taking two gopins of flour …’
She then had to explain to me that a ‘gopin’ was a double
handful. ‘But how do you know when you’ve got exactly a
gopin?’ I asked. ‘Oh, you just know by the feel of your hand,’
she replied.

Measurements in cooking these days tend to be much more

precise. Recipes are usually stated in formal units like grams,
lbs, litres, and so on; these were explained in Chapter 7,
Measuring. This section covers one or two specific questions
that often present themselves in the kitchen which require some
mathematics.

How do teaspoons, pints and litres match up?

Most recipes published in the UK tend to be stated in both

imperial and metric units, as well as in more informal units such
as teaspoons, tablespoons, drops, etc. The imperial measures are
based on British weights and liquid measures. Note that American
measures are different. For example, a standard American cup will

Appendix G. Cooking with figures 253

 hold 4 oz of sifted flour as compared with a standard British
cup of 5 oz. Similarly, there are roughly 3 British tablespoons
of sifted flour to the ounce as compared with 4 American
tablespoons to the ounce.

The table below summarizes the approximate capacities of the

informal measures around the kitchen.

1 teaspoon = 5 ml
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon (tbsp)
1 tablespoonful = 15 ml
1 teacupful = 1 pint = 7 fluid ounces = 190 ml
3
1 breakfastcupful = 1 pint = 10 fluid ounces = 280 ml
2

There is no exact whole number conversion between metric and

imperial measures, so whatever value you choose will depend on
how accurate you need to be. In cooking, the needs for accuracy
are usually not great, and indeed you wouldn’t be able to weigh
out ingredients to great accuracy anyway. The tables below give
accurate and approximate conversions between imperial and
metric measures.

Weight

To convert Multiply by
Accurate figureCooking approximation

Ounces to grams 28.350 25

Pounds to grams 453.592 450
Pounds to kilograms 0.4536 0.45
Grams to ounces 0.0353 0.035
Grams to pounds 0.0022 0.0022
Kilograms to pounds 2.2046 2.2

25
Liquid measures
Pints to millilitres (ml) 568 550
To convert
Pints to litres (l) 0.568 Multiply by0.55
Accurate figureCooking approximation
Fluid ounces to ml 28.4 25
Fluid ounces to litres 0.0284 0.025
Millilitres to pints 0.00176 0.0017
Litres to pints 1.760 1.75
Millilitres to fluid ounces 0.0352 0.035
Litres to fluid ounces 35.21 35

How accurate do I need to be in my cooking?

This is a difficult question to answer precisely. With some recipes, for

example vegetable soup or a salad mix, it isn’t critical if you don’t use
the exact proportions stated in the recipe book. But if you are making,
say, a subtle sauce (creamy paprika dressing, for example) the flavour
could be affected by even a small error in one of the ingredients.

Have a look now at the basic ingredients for bread and butter
pudding, as given in my recipe book, and see if you can spot some
sources of error in the measurement of these ingredients.

Bread and butter pudding

Thin slices of wholemeal bread 4 (about 4 oz/100 g) Butter or margarine 1 oz (25 g
Raw brown sugar 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Mixed sultanas, raisins & currants 2 oz (50 g) Fresh milk 3 pt (426 ml)

4
Free-range eggs 2
Ground cinnamon 14tsp (1.25 ml)
Nutmeg 14 tsp (1.25 ml)
Serves 4

Appendix G. Cooking with figures 255

 Here are a few points to note.

a Certain tiny amounts, like the 1.25 ml of nutmeg and ground

cinnamon, are too small to weigh on kitchen scales. So you really
will need to resort to using the informal measure of 1 tsp. It is
4
actually unclear what this looks like. Recipes sometimes talk about
a ‘flat teaspoonful’ and a ‘heaped teaspoonful’, so an ordinary
teaspoonful is somewhere between the two. Measuring out a
quarter of one of those is no easy task. The truth is that this sort of
measure is very approximate indeed and cooks will put in a variable
amount of cinnamon and nutmeg, depending on whether or not
they are keen on these flavours in their bread and butter pudding.
b Butter and margarine are rarely weighed out. Apart from the
fact that they are difficult to weigh out as they tend to smear the
weighing pan, it isn’t necessary to do so. The standard method is
to take a fresh pack of butter or margarine, which weighs, say,
500 g, and mark it out into five equal sections, thus:

50 g
100 g
25 g
25 g

Each main section will therefore be 100 g. Then take half and
half again of one 100 g strip and this is 25 g.
c The amount of egg in the pudding will depend on the size of
eggs used and egg size is not specified in the recipe. There is a
considerable variation in egg weight, from ‘very large’ (73 g and
over) down to ‘small’ (53 g and under). Egg sizes are classified
into four weight bands, as follows.

SizeWeight

Very large 73 g and over

Large 63 – 73 g
Medium 53 – 63 g
Small 53 g and under

25
 If you assume that a given ‘very large’ egg weighs 75 g and a
given ‘small’ egg weighs 50 g, there is 50% more in the ‘very
large’ egg than in the ‘small’ egg. Looking at it another way,
three ‘small’ eggs weigh roughly the same as two ‘very large’ eggs.

d Finally, have a look at the imperial and metric measures in

this recipe (and others in your own recipe book). As was
explained earlier, the conversions are only approximate.
But just how approximate are they? The answer is that some
are more approximate than others. It is possible to calculate
the percentage error of the conversions and this is shown in
the table below.

ImperialStated Actual metricError Error (%)

metric

13.4
4 oz 100 g 113.4 g 13.4 g 113.4
× 100 = 12%
1 oz 25 g 28.35 g 3.35 g 12%
4 3 pt 426 ml 426 ml 0 ml 0%
1
2 pt 300 ml 284 ml 16 ml 6%
1 lb 450 g 453.592 g 3.592 g 0.8%

As is clear from the table, some conversions contain a substantial

error (for example, the standard conversion from ounces to grams is
12% out) while others, like the 3 pt of milk, contain no evidence of
4
error. Of course, whether you are able, accurately, to measure out
exactly 426 ml of milk in your measuring jug is another question!

How do I scale up a recipe?

The recipe for bread and butter pudding given earlier serves four
people, but I often cook for seven. This requires having to multiply
each amount by the fraction 7. The easiest way to do this is to set
4
the calculator constant to × 1.75. (Using the calculator constant was
explained in Chapter 3.) The results can then be rounded sensibly.

Appendix G. Cooking with figures 257

Original recipeScaled upRounded

Thin slices of wholemeal 100 × 1.75 = 175 g 175 g

bread 4 (about 4 oz/100 g) or4 7 × 4 (original slices) 7 slices
Butter or margarine 1 oz (25 g) 25 × 1.75 = 43.75 g 50 g
Raw brown sugar 1 tbsp (15 ml) 15 × 1.75 = 26.25 ml 25 ml
Mixed sultanas, raisins and 50 × 1.75 = 87.5 g 100 g
currants 2 oz (50 g)
Fresh milk 3 pt (426 ml) 426 × 1.75 = 745.5 ml 750 ml
4
Free-range eggs 2 2 × 1.75 = 3.5 4 small/
3 large
Ground cinnamon 1 tsp tsp 1
tsp
4
1
× 7 4=
4
7
16
(1.25 ml)
Nutmeg 1 tsp (1.25 ml) 1
×7 = 7 tsp 1
tsp
2
4 4 4 16

Note: Sensible rounding of the larger metric numbers means

rounding to the nearest 25 g or 25 ml. With ingredients like eggs,
you can’t easily add fractions of an egg, but you may have some
flexibility over the size of eggs you use – for example, in this case,
3.5 eggs may approximate to either 4 small eggs or 3 large ones.
But if you are like me, you just have one size of egg in your fridge
and so you are stuck with what you’ve got!

25
 Appendix H
Buying a TV set
Something like 96 per cent of households in the UK have (at least
one) television set. Each of these households has therefore taken a
decision about whether to buy or rent. If they chose to buy, they
had a further choice as to whether to pay it all off straight away
or to put down a deposit followed by regular instalments. The
instalment method is also known as ‘buying on credit’ or HP
(hire purchase). This method of payment is a bit like taking out a
loan and you should expect to be charged more for paying in this
way than for buying your TV outright.

This example focuses on how much you are likely to pay for your
TV set if you decide to ‘buy on credit’.

0% finance

Some shops offer a deal whereby you can buy on credit but the
amount you pay overall is the same as if you bought the item outright.
This will be advertised as 0% finance or 0% interest. For example:

Appendix H. Buying a TV set 259

 SONY 21" Widescreen HD LCD Television

€ 51cm visible screen size

€ Superb Dolby surround sound
€ HD ready
18 months 0% interest

Price £349.99

20% deposit & 18 direct debit monthly payments of

Before checking the interest payments, let’s just consider how the
‘size’ of this television set has been described in the advertisement.
It is given separately both in imperial units (21 inches) and metric
units (51 cm). All such measurements refer to the length of the
diagonal of the screen, measured from corner to corner. Now, let’s
confirm that 21 inches and 51 cm really are the same length.
To convert from inches to centimetres, we multiply by 2.54, thus:

21 × 2.54 = 53.34

Hmm. This result of 53.34 cm doesn’t match up very well with

the 51 cm figure I was expecting, so I’m not quite sure which,
if either, of these figures to believe.

Something else worth checking here is the claim that this method
of payment by monthly instalments really does represent 0%
interest.

The figures can be checked as follows:

First, for convenience, let’s round up the price of the TV set to

£350.

Deposit = 20% of £350 = 0.2 × 350 = £70

18 monthly payments of £15.56 = 18 × 15.56 = £280.08
TOTAL = £350.08

26
OK, so you pay an extra 9 pence (£350.08, as compared with
£349.99), but basically the total amount paid out by the instalment
method is the same as the cash price. This confirms the claim that
this method of payment does represent 0% interest.

By the way, don’t assume that the 0% interest deal is always the
best. Stores offering such deals may actually have higher prices for
similar products than their rivals who may be offering a higher
interest rate. In other words, the cost of the loan may be included
in the price.

APR

0% interest is good when you can get it, but usually there is some
interest charge when paying on credit. It is useful to know exactly
how much you are being charged, and to be able to compare the
‘real’ interest rate between different shops. Dealers charge a variety
of different interest rates, subject to the size of the deposit and
the length of the repayment period. As a result, it can be difficult to
compare the actual interest being applied from one dealer to
another. In recent years, this problem has been solved by the fact
that all retailers are legally required to publish the effective
interest rate of each deal on offer, using a measure called the
‘annual percentage rate’ or APR. The APR is the percentage cost of
the loan, calculated over a year. It is quite difficult to calculate as
the buyer pays a bit back at a time. The main thing to remember
about APR is that a higher rate means that you pay more. For
example,
an APR of 32% means that you pay out more than with an APR of
27%. In general, all other things being equal (such as price, quality,
after-sales service, insurance, and so on) look for the deal offering
the lowest APR.

Appendix H. Buying a TV set 261

 Appendix I
Will it fit?
Purchases of large household items, like a sofa, cabinet, or kitchen
unit, are often closely linked to the questions ‘Where will I put it?’
and ‘Will it fit?’. Ideally, these questions are sorted out before you
have parted with your money, and not after!

Moving house is another situation where questions of arranging

the furniture have to be made, made sensibly and, ideally, made in
advance of removal day.

A useful strategy for helping you to decide where items of furniture

should go is to produce a scale drawing of the various rooms and
to make paper cutout models of the sofa, table, TV, shelving unit,
etc. This enables you to try things out without any of the sweat of
trying out the objects themselves in situ.

The task of producing scale models and a scale drawing is actually

quite straightforward and fun to do.

You will need the following resources:

€ several sheets of squared paper or graph paper

€ scissors
€ tape measure
€ ruler, pencil and access to the back-of-an-envelope!

26
Then follow the steps below.

1 Draw a rough ‘back-of-an-envelope’ sketch of the room,

marking on the significant features – windows, doors,
chimney breast, etc., and make a note of ‘fixed points’ like
electric sockets, TV aerial, etc.

2 Using a tape measure, measure all the lengths of the room or

rooms that you think you will need for your scale drawing.
You are recommended to use metric units (metres and
centimetres) as these are easier to deal with on the drawing.

3 Get some squared paper or graph paper and decide on a suitable

scale. Ideally the final drawing should take up most of this sheet
of paper (if the drawing is too small, you won’t have much
confidence in decisions where the fit is rather tight). Make the
scale drawing on the squared or graph paper.

4 Measure the length and the width of each major item of furniture
that might go in the room. Make a 2D drawing, to scale, of each
item on another sheet of squared or graph paper. Write the name
of each item on its appropriate scale drawing, and then cut the
models out.

You are now ready to ‘play’!

Here is how I went about it for one room in my ‘des. res.’, the
bedroom.

1 & 2 I made a sketch of my bedroom, measured the dimensions

and marked them on, as shown below.
3.5 m
window
door

3.7 m

Appendix I. Will it fit? 263

 3 My squared paper is marked out in half centimetre squares.
It is roughly 60 squares long and 40 squares wide. Since the
bedroom is 3.7 m long and 3.5 m wide, I need to make a sensible
judgement about the scale. (This is the only slightly tricky part
of the job.) I decided to let 1 m = 10 squares. This meant that
the room would be contained in a drawing of 37 squares by
35 squares.

4 The bedroom furniture was duly measured and again the same
scale was applied. For example, the bed is 1.95 m long by
1.60 m wide. Using the scale of 1 m = 10 squares, this results
in a cutout rectangle of 19.5 × 16 squares. The other items of
furniture were cut out in the same way. Note: Care needs to be
taken with cupboards and cabinets in order that they are placed
so that the doors are able to swing open. Similarly, it is helpful
to mark the way the bedroom door opens, again to ensure that it
is not obstructed.
WINDOW

DOOR
CUPBOARD

BEDROOM

BED

BEDSIDE CABINET BEDSIDE CABINET

26
 Appendix J
Measures of alcohol
Ethyl alcohol, chemical formula C2H5OH; an essence or spirit obtained by distillation.

Not everyone drinks alcohol, but whether you do or not, you will
be aware of its effects. The classic symptoms of the drug are a
feeling of well-being, associated with a slowing down of the thought
processes and reduced ability to react quickly. Taken in excess,
alcohol can damage the liver and cause problems of overweight.

So far, so bad! There is little doubt that, like cigarettes, if alcohol

were invented today it would never be legalized!

If you or someone close to you does drink alcohol, it is sensible to

know something about the alcoholic content of drinks and what
sort of sensible limits are recommended by doctors.

Alcoholic content of drinks

Confusingly, there are two main ways of measuring how much

alcohol there is in drink.

The old-fashioned measure of alcoholic strength is the degrees

proof (e.g. 75° proof). This is measured in the range between a
minimum of 0 and a maximum of 175. So water is 0° proof and

Appendix J. Measures of alcohol 265

 neat alcohol would be measured at 175° proof. This measure
used to be applied to spirits and other drinks with a high alcohol
content, but it is less commonly used these days.

Increasingly, bottles and cans of alcoholic drink are marked in terms

of the percentage of alcohol in the drink (e.g. 8%). Calculated in
this way, neat alcohol would be measured at 100%. This measure
has traditionally been applied to beers, cider, lager and other drinks
with a relatively low alcohol content. However, most supermarkets
and large retailers now use this method for spirits also.

The diagram below shows how to convert between these two

measures.

multiply
by 1.75

percentage of alcohol degrees proof

divide
by 1.75

You might like to try the following exercise of converting between

the two types of measure. And when you have completed the
table, see if you can make some general comparisons between the
strengths of different alcoholic drinks.

Drink Degrees Approximate

proof % alcohol
White or red wine 14
Black Bush Irish Whiskey 40
Beauregard Napoleon Brandy 37.5
Safeway Vintage Port 20
Carlsberg Special (extra strength) 9.2
Newcastle Brown Ale (strong ale) 7.5
Woodpecker Cider (average cider) 5.5
Tuborg Lager (ordinary lager) 3.7

26
 SOLUTION

White or red wine 24.5 14

Drink
Black Bush Irish Whiskey Degrees
70 proof Approximate
40
% alcohol
Beauregard Napoleon Brandy 65.6 37.5
Safeway Vintage Port 35 20
Carlsberg Special (extra strength) 9.2 5.3
Newcastle Brown Ale (strong ale) 7.5 4.3
Woodpecker Cider (average cider) 5.5 3.1
Tuborg Lager (ordinary lager) 3.7 2.1

There are a few interesting points to emerge from the table. Running
your eye down the final column of the completed table, you can see that
spirits like whiskey and brandy are nearly 20 times as strong, by volume,
as ordinary lager. Also, a strong ale like Newcastle Brown contains twice
as much alcohol as an ordinary lager. This means that drinking three pints
of Newcastle Brown is equivalent to drinking six pints of Tuborg. Also,
in terms of alcohol content, two pints of Carlsberg Special is roughly
equivalent to five pints of Tuborg Lager.

How do drinking habits vary around the UK?

The recommended maximum sensible amounts of alcohol are

21 units per week for men and 14 units per week for women.
One unit is the equivalent of half a pint of ordinary strength beer
or lager, a single measure of spirits, or a glass of wine. With this
information and the data given in the table above, you should
be able to work out how much of their favourite tipple various
individuals should limit themselves to. For example, how many
should the following individuals set as their upper weekly limits?

1 Hamish. He drinks Carlsberg Special extra strength lager.

2 Marti. She drinks average strength cider.

Appendix J. Measures of alcohol 267

 SOLUTION

1 Hamish’s rations
Extra strength lager is roughly 2 1 times as strong as ordinary lager or
2
beer (you can work this out by dividing the percentage alcohol content of
extra strength lager, 5.3, by the percentage alcohol content of ordinary
lager, 2.1). So, while Hamish would be able to drink 10.5 pints (21 units
or half pints) of ordinary lager, the equivalent number of pints of extra
strength lager is calculated as 10.5 = 4.2 pints. In other words, he should
2
limit himself to a couple of pints per night, two nights a week.

2 Marti’s rations
As a woman, Marti is allowed 7 pints (i.e. 14 units) of ordinary lager
or beer. However, cider is stronger than lager. To calculate how
much stronger, we must do the following calculation:
3.1
= 1.5 (approximately)
2

The equivalent number of pints of cider is calculated as 7 = 4.7 pints.

1

In other words, she should limit herself to, say, three half pints per
night, three nights a week.

You may be wondering to what extent people do restrict their

drinking within these upper limits. In general, women are more
responsible in their drinking than men. There are also quite wide
variations by region around the UK, as the graph below shows.

26
 Scotland

Wales

North West

West Midlands
Females Males
South West

Rest of South

East Greater

London East

Anglia East

Midlands

Yorkshire & Humberside

North

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Percentages

Typical consumption of alcohol above sensible limits (Persons aged 16 and over, consuming
22 units or more for males, and 15 or more units for females, per week) by sex and region,
GB.

Source: Social trends, 24

Insight: The difference between men and women One of the reasons t
alcohol is distributed through the body fluids, so in men the alcohol is more ‘dilut

A second reason is that a woman’s liver is more likely to suffer damage through a

Appendix J. Measures of alcohol 269

 Appendix K
Understanding barcodes
Up until the 1970s, supermarket goods were individually priced.
Looking back, it is clear that this system had a number of drawbacks.
Firstly, if the store decided to increase the price of, say, their baked
beans, someone was required to collect all existing tins on the
shelves, remove the existing labels and reprice each tin individually.
Secondly, the system was open to abuse from dishonest customers
who could switch price labels, substituting a cheaper one for a more
expensive one before taking it through the check-out. Thirdly, each
item had to be individually entered manually into the till at the
check-out –
a time-consuming task that was prone to error and abuse.

Barcodes changed all that. Instead of a price label being attached

to each tin of beans or bag of muesli, etc., most items are
manufactured with a barcode included on the packaging.
A barcode looks something like this.

9 780340 644188
Barcoded items are scanned electronically, a process which is
almost error-free. So any information that is encoded in the barcode
is transferred via the scanner into the computerized till. The beauty
of the system is that the computer is able to log in much more

27
information than simply the item’s price. For example, each tin of
beans that passes across the scanner is sold to a customer. This fact is
automatically logged into the computer so that the store has a running
count of their stock at any given time. At the end of each day they
can then reorder new stocks of beans with some degree of
precision. Precision in reordering is an important component in
running a successful and competitive supermarket. Ordering
insufficient tins of beans means the store may run out next day.
Ordering too many
results in a warehousing problem in storing the crates of surplus beans.

Sales over many months and years provide a valuable database of

information from which the store can predict seasonal patterns and
so fine-tune their reorders. Also, price changes of an entire line can
be entered as a single instruction on the store’s computer without
staff having to reprice existing stock, item by item, on the shelves.

As you can see if you examine any barcode, the bars are written
alongside a row of numbers. When the electronic scanner ‘reads’
the bars, the information being inputted is actually these numbers
in coded form. There are different barcode systems; some have just
8 digits while others have 13. Here is a 13-digit barcode for a
450 g tin of Heinz baked beans.

5 000157 004185

These 13 digits have been grouped rather oddly with the first
digit, the 5, on its own and the remaining 12 digits split into two
groups of six. This is how the human eye sees the number, but
the computer scanner groups them differently. In terms of what
information the computer needs, the 13 digits split into four basic
components, which are explained below.

50 The first two digits indicate the country of origin;

in this case 50 means the UK.
00157 The next five digits refer to the manufacturer; the
number allocated to all Heinz products is 00157.
00418 The next five digits indicate the particular product.
So, Heinz have allocated these five digits to refer to a
450 g tin of Heinz baked beans.
Appendix K. Understanding barcodes 271
 5 The final digit is known as a ‘checksum’. Its purpose is
to confirm that the digits recorded so far by the scanner
are consistent and therefore likely to be correct. If the
scanner should read the first 12 digits given above, followed
by any digit other than 5, the computer will record an error
(usually sounding a bleep) and the operator will know
to rescan that item. The checksum is based on a formula
applied to the previous 12 digits which should produce
a single digit – in this case the number 5. The formula
used for calculating this checksum is explained below.

The checksum

There are different ways of calculating checksums. This one is

calculated by completing the following stages.

StageExample

1 Number the first 12 digits from 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1 to 12. 5 0 0 0 1 5 7 0 0 4 1 8
2 Add together all the odd- 5 + 0 + 1 + 7 + 0 + 1 = 14
numbered digits.
3 Add together all the even- 0 + 0 + 5 + 0 + 4 + 8 = 17
numbered digits.
4 Now add the result of Stage 2, 14 + 3 × 17 = 65
the 14, to three times the result
of Stage 3, the 17.
5 Subtract the result of Stage 4 70 – 65 = 5
from the next bigger multiple This gives the checksum, 5,
of ten*, which in this case is which becomes the 13th digit.
70.

*Note: If Stage 4 had produced the result 82, you would subtract this number from 90;
a result of 56 would have to be subtracted from 60, and so on. In the case where the
formula produces a result ending in zero (say 60) then subtract it from itself,
producing a checksum of 0 (60 – 60). The reason for setting up Stage 5 of the
calculation in this form is to ensure
a single-digit answer for the checksum.

27
You might like to explore this now for yourself. If you can’t
immediately lay your hands on any examples of 13-digit barcodes,
then look at page 270 where one is reproduced. And here are two
more to investigate.

Source Barcode
Guardian newspaper, 26 June 2001 9 770261 307729
Guardian newspaper, 29 June 2001 9 770261 307750

a Which digits indicate that these newspapers were sold three

days apart?
b Confirm that each checksum is correct.
c Suppose that a scanner misreads the first 12 digits of a
barcode. How likely is it that the checksum would turn out to
be correct for the incorrectly scanned number by chance alone?

SOLUTION

a The final digits of these barcodes are the checksums. The only
other differences in the codes are in the 12th digits. Notice
that digits 8 to 12 inclusive of the barcode for the Guardian
of 29 June are 30775, while those for 26 June are 30772,
a difference of 3.
b The checksums are calculated as follows.
26 June
(9 + 7 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 7) + 3 × (7 + 0 + 6 + 3 + 7 + 2)
= 26 + 75 = 101.
110 – 101 = 9 Check!

29 June
(9 + 7 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 7) + 3 × (7 + 0 + 6 + 3 + 7 + 5)
= 26 + 84 = 110.
110 – 110 = 0 Check!

c Finally, there is a one in ten chance of the checksum being

accepted even if the previous digits were scanned incorrectly.
This is because there are ten possible digits available and
there is therefore a one in ten chance that the checksum digit
scanned happened to match the other 12 by chance alone.

Appendix K. Understanding barcodes 273

 Appendix L
Junk mail and free offers
They say there is no such thing as a free lunch and the same
principle probably applies to free offers, especially when they
take the form of unsolicited junk mail. Many of the offers that
arrive on your mat are packaged in the form of a game of chance
which you are invited to play. If you should be successful, and
it’s a fair bet that you will be, you qualify for their amazing free
offer by being one of the very few lucky winners. You only need
to complete the form and send away for big prizes. Further
reading of the small print will no doubt reveal that things are
not quite that simple.

A good example of this came through my door recently.

‘Play this game and see how many mystery gifts you can claim!’
the card read. The game card took the form of a 3 × 3 grid. Each
cell in the grid was covered by a tear-off tab. The punter is asked
to pull three tabs only. This revealed a number in each cell. If the
numbers revealed added up to

6 ……… claim 1 gift

7 ……… claim 2 gifts
8 ……… claim 3 gifts

My score came to 10, so I was clearly in luck. However, I couldn’t

resist tearing off the other six tabs (thereby making my game card

27
void, but then that’s life, eh!). The nine un-tabbed cells produced
the following contents.

2 5 1
4 5 5
5 3 5

What this revealed was that the worst possible score I could get
was 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. In other words, I couldn’t fail to win at least
one prize. The second worst score I could get was 1 + 2 + 4 = 7,
which guaranteed two prizes. Any other combination guaranteed
the maximum of three prizes. But just how many combinations are
there altogether?

To calculate the number of possible selections, we go through each

choice of cell in turn. There are 9 possible ways of choosing the
first cell, 8 possible ways of choosing the second and 7 possible
ways of choosing the third. Thus, the number of possible selections
that I could have chosen is 9 × 8 × 7 = 504. However, we need to
be careful here, because each of these selections is the same as a
number of other selections taken in a different order. In fact for
any selection of three things, there are six possible orderings.

If you aren’t convinced of this, consider a selection of the letters

ABC. The six different ways of ordering these are as follows.

ABC
ACB
BAC
BCA
CAB
CBA

So, we conclude that the figure of 504 is actually six times too large
if you wish to count only the number of possible combinations,
without taking account of order. This gives a final figure of 504 = 84
6
possible combinations from the game card.

Appendix L. Junk mail and free offers 275

Appendix K. Understanding barcodes 275
 So, it seems that, assuming the punters really do choose their
tabs randomly, out of every 84 tries, the organizers could expect
1 person to win one prize, 1 to win two prizes and 82 to win all
three. Put another way, something like 82 = 0.976, or 97.6% of
8
punters will get the thrill of hitting the jackpot on this game.

Hmm! Maybe I wasn’t quite as lucky as I thought!

27
 Appendix M
Winning on the National Lottery
In case you have never bought a lottery ticket, here is how it works.

Numbers from 1 to 49 inclusive are printed out on a ‘pay slip’.

You choose six numbers between 1 and 49. If at least three of the
numbers you choose match any of the six main numbers drawn,
you are a winner.

Prizes vary depending on how many numbers you can match.

At the time of writing, the prizes are:

Winning selectionsExpected prize

€ Jackpot. Match 6 main numbers 2 million

€ Match 5 main numbers plus the bonus number £100 000
€ Match 5 main numbers £1500
€ Match 4 main numbers £65
€ Match 3 main numbers £10

Most countries run national lotteries. They provide a lot of fun and
fantasy for the punters and, of course, are nice little earners for the
government.

Lottery fever hit the UK in November 1994, with a much-hyped

launch on TV, radio and the press. A lot of advice and information was
offered to the great British public, most of which was total nonsense.

Appendix M. Winning on the National Lottery 277

 On the Jonathan Ross television show, a clairvoyant, named
The Voxx, came up with a photo-fit of the winner:

‘…in her forties with strawberry blond hair, possibly dyed, of

Irish or Scottish background, has travelled extensively and has
had a tough time in love but there is someone in her life at the
moment. She also has a son.’

Well, that should narrow it down to a few hundred thousand

people!

The Sun newspaper helpfully printed a giant dot, charged with

lucky psychic energy. Readers were invited to touch the lucky
spot, close their eyes and the numbers would just come to them by
the sheer power of the ‘Lottery spottery’. The Sun provided some
evidence from the USA (where lucky spots were first devised) for
this claim. Apparently, ‘thousands of people said they only won
because of their special power’. Wow!

Other papers offered yet more advice. For example, avoid so-called
‘lucky’ numbers like 7, 11 and 13, and avoid choosing numbers
relating to birthdays or anniversaries. Can you think of any
rational explanation for this?

So, who is to be believed and is there a ‘best strategy’ for playing

the lottery? Fortunately in answering these questions, mathematics
can provide insights to some of the parts that even lottery spottery
cannot reach!

Let’s try to sort out some of the fact from the fiction. Two key
ideas will be explained below. The first explores the chance of
winning – what sort of odds you are really up against. The second
is to do with the way the numbers are chosen, both by the lottery
‘random number generator’ (the name for the machine that spits
out the winning numbers) and how the numbers are selected by the
paying, playing punters.

27
What are my chances?

Roughly half of the money paid into the lottery is given back in
prizes. So, taking a very long term view, if you bought, say, £1000
worth of lottery tickets over your lifetime, you could expect, on
average, to lose about £500. The reality is that you will almost
certainly not win one of the monster prizes, but then again you
just might. According to the promoters, the odds against winning
the jackpot of, say, £2 million (although this figure depends on how
many people play) are about 14 million to one. By the way, if you
are interested in how this figure of 14 million is calculated, it is
explained on page 282. So for this prize, you would expect, on
average, to have to lay out £14 million to win back £2 million.
At the other end of the winnings scale, there is one chance in 57 of
winning a £10 guaranteed prize – i.e. you would expect, on average
to lay out £57 to win back £10.

In terms of return on your investment, this is pretty thin gruel,

whichever way you serve it up. But then again, what keeps most of
us losing money on such foolishness is that we might just win that
big one!

How are the numbers chosen?

As with Bingo, a key principle of the lottery is equal likelihood –

i.e. the device for choosing the numbers is designed so that each
number has an equal chance of coming up. The only thing that
would prevent that from happening is if the random number
generator was programmed to generate numbers in a different
way. But then that would be cheating.

Numbers which have an equal chance of coming up are known as

random numbers (for example, tossing dice, coins, and so on).

Appendix M. Winning on the National Lottery 279

 So, since lottery numbers are chosen at random, no number or
combination of numbers is more or less likely to come up than any
other. For example, the selection 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 is just as likely
(well, just as unlikely would be more appropriate) as a mixed bag
of numbers like 32, 6, 18, 41, 9, 15.

Clearly, then, you have no control over whether or not your numbers
win. But what about sharing your winnings with others? Here you
can exercise your skill and judgement by anticipating what numbers
other punters are likely to choose. Basically, if you come up with a
winning combination, you will share it with fewer people if you pick
numbers that others are less likely to pick. So this is where a bit of
mind reading comes in. A simple example may make this clearer.

A simplified lottery example

Twenty punters, paying £1 each to play, choose a number in the

range 1 to 6. A die is tossed and the £10 winnings1 are shared among
those who chose the winning number.

The punters’ choices are shown

below. Selection 1 2 3 4 5 6
No. of people 2 5 4 5 3 1

In other words, two punters chose ‘1’, five chose ‘2’, four chose ‘3’,
and so on. Now, notice that if the die shows up ‘2’ or ‘4’, the winnings
have to be shared among five winners, so each of these winning
punters gets £10 = £2. But it is just as likely that the winning number
turns out to be 5‘6’, in which case the lucky winner scoops the lot.
In fact, ‘6’ would be a good choice here, because (due to negative
experiences playing board games) people tend to avoid this number
in the mistaken belief that it is less likely to come up than any other.

1
‘Hey, where did the other £10 go?’
To the lottery organizers, of course. There are so many expenses; they have
huge advertising and administrative costs. Then they have to buy the die, and
that doesn’t come cheap. And, of course, they need to train their staff to toss it
and see fair play all round.

28
So, a good overall strategy is to avoid numbers that other people
are likely to choose and to go for numbers that they are unlikely to
choose.

Finally,
A goodnote that these strategies
overall strategyare only successful if we have
successfully predicted how the other punters will choose their
numbers
Avoid (i.e. that ‘lucky’
people’s they will tend tolike
numbers, go for
3, 7,numbers
11. less than 31,
avoid
Avoid numbers linked to birthdays or anniversaries. indications
numbers in sequence, and so on). In fact all the
are that this In
is other
indeedwords
whatavoid
peoplealldo. Evidence
numbers of 31fororthis emerged
below (days
from the very in a month) and particularly avoid numbers ofwhich
first UK national lottery in November 1994 12 or
produced thebelowfollowing winning
(months numbers:
in a year).
Go for numbers above 31.
3, for
Go 5, 14, 22, 30 in
numbers and 44 (10 was
a sequence the bonus
(many peoplenumber)
mistakenly think
that these are less likely than numbers which ‘look
To the great disappointment of the organizers, Camelot, the
jackpot had to be scaled down from an estimated £7 million
to £5.8 million as the number of small-scale winners became
known. Camelot staff had not expected there to be as many as the
one million players who would pick up the guaranteed £10 prize
pay-out for three correct numbers. The reason, it seems, was that
most of the players did pick numbers relating to birthdays and,
as can be seen, five of the six winning numbers were below 31.

So, best strategy at the time of writing, is to choose numbers above

31 and opt for strings, rather than avoid them as the naive players
will. Of course, at a certain point, when enough people have
read this book, it may be the case that the informed punters will

Appendix M. Winning on the National Lottery 281

 outnumber the naive ones. When that happy state arrives, you may
feel it appropriate to change your strategy accordingly. Me? Well,
if this knowledge is brought about by my book selling more than
5 million copies, I certainly won’t need to waste my time or money
on a dumb lottery!

How is the figure of 14 million to one calculated?

It is correctly claimed by the lottery organizers that if you choose

six numbers at random from a list of 49, the odds are about 14
million to one against your selecting the six winning numbers. The
calculation is explained below based on an initial slight incorrect
assumption, but I will sort that out at the end!

Start by choosing the first number. There are 49 to choose from

so there are clearly 49 choices. Choosing the second number means
choosing from the 48 remaining numbers. So, for each of the
49 first choices there are 48 second choices. In other words, there
are 49 × 48 ways of choosing the first two numbers. Similarly,
there are 49 × 48 × 47 ways of choosing the first three numbers,
and so on. Following the same line of argument, it would seem that
the number of ways of choosing the first six numbers correctly are:

49 × 48 × 47 × 46 × 45 × 44

Unfortunately, most basic calculators are unable to perform this

calculation because it produces a result too big for the calculator
to display. So will you take my word for it that this is the correct
answer? Well, you shouldn’t! As I suggested earlier, there is an
error in the reasoning here, which I will now correct.

The error is that I have included each combination of numbers many

times, as a result of which this answer is too large. To convince
you of this, imagine that the first set of six numbers you chose was:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

28
This same combination of numbers could also crop up as 1, 3,
2, 4, 5, 6 or 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 or any ordering you can think of. But
just how many orderings are there? This question was explored
in Appendix L: Junk mail and free offers. There we ordered three
things and found that there were six possible orderings. The
number of ways of ordering six things is more complicated and
can be calculated as follows.

There are six ways of ordering the first number, five ways of
ordering the second, four ways of ordering the third, and so on.

So, the number of ways of ordering six things is

6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 720.

And now, back to the plot. This last discussion suggests that
each combination of numbers contained in the calculation

49 × 48 × 47 × 46 × 45 × 44

is actually included 720 times.

So, the number of separate combinations is

49× 48× 47 × 46× 45× 44

720 .

Now we can punch this out on the calculator and hope we get the
answer 14 million. One snag is that, if you calculate the top line
first before dividing by 720, you will almost certainly cause the
calculator to overflow. A sneaky way out of this is to divide by
the 720 sooner rather than later in the calculation. For example,
I pressed the following:

49 720
  48  47  46  45  44 

This produces the answer 13 983 816, which isn’t all that far away
from the result we were hoping for of 14 million.

Appendix M. Winning on the National Lottery 283

 Appendix N
Safe travel
Is it safer to travel by road or by rail?
Most people say that rail travel is safer, but is this really true?
A useful start in answering these questions is to look at the
number of deaths in a year due to railway and road accidents.
Typical annual figures for Great Britain, supplied by the Office of
Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS), are as follows:

Deaths due to railway accidents 70

Deaths due to road accidents 4628

So, clearly, many more people die on the roads than by travelling
on a train – in fact about 70 times as many, in the year in question.
But does this mean that rail travel is 70 times safer than road
travel? The answer is: not necessarily, because we may not be
comparing like with like. An important complicating factor is that
many more people travel many more kilometres by road than by
rail. For example, private motor vehicles and taxis are used for
around 90 per cent of distances travelled in the UK. To answer the
question fairly, we need to take account of the average distances
travelled by each mode of transport and use these to calculate the
accident rates. These can then be compared directly. So here goes.

The fairest figure to use here is the number of passenger kilometres

for both road and rail. As the name implies, one passenger

28
kilometre is recorded when one passenger travels one kilometre.
If five passengers each travel 10 kilometres, a total of 50 passenger
kilometres will be recorded.

Typical annual rail passenger

transport use = 100 billion passenger km
Typical annual road passenger
transport use = 590 billion passenger km

To calculate the accident rate per billion passenger kilometres,

we divide the number of deaths in a year by the number of billion
passenger kilometres, thus:

Rail passenger death rate = 70 = 0.7

1
Road passenger death rate = 4628 =5 7.8

Using this comparison, it seems that road travel is roughly ten

times as dangerous as rail travel, in round figures.

It is interesting to look at other forms of transport, based on

this comparison of the number of deaths per billion passenger
kilometres. Typical annual figures for Great Britain are as follows.

Air
ModeRate 0.1
per billion passenger kilometres
Water 0.5
Rail 0.7
Bus or coach 0.4
Car 3.6
Van 2.2
Motorcycles 97.0
Pedal cyclists 43.4
Foot 53.4
Source: Department of Transport

So, according to this measure, air travel really is the safest form of
transport and motorcycling is by far the most dangerous. However,

Appendix N. Safe travel 285

 it should be stressed that all measures have their drawbacks and
this is just one possible measure. A weakness in the measure used
here is that it favours modes of travel which are fast over the
slower methods. Thus, air travel can allow you to cover, say, a
hundred kilometres in just a few minutes, whereas you would take
days on foot to cover this sort of distance. As a result, for a given
number of passenger kilometres, the exposure to risk on foot is
much greater merely due to the fact that there is a longer period
of time during which an accident can happen. However, provided
this aspect is borne in mind, using the number of deaths per billion
passenger kilometres is probably the fairest comparison available.

28
 Appendix O
World population
It used to be said that everyone in the world could just fit onto the
Isle of Wight if they all squeezed up a bit. How could you check a
claim like this?

Clearly, it is impossible to prove or disprove such a claim with

absolute certainty – for one thing, the facts and figures needed are
simply not available with perfect accuracy and there are too many
practical difficulties (are we allowed to knock down all the buildings
and trees, for example?). But there is some fun to be had in making
sensible guesses and doing an ‘order of magnitude’ calculation.

First, let us establish what information is needed to make the

calculation.

€ What is the current population of the world?

Clearly it is changing all the time, but we can look it up in a
reference book. According to the UK government publication,
Social Trends, the estimate of the world’s population in 2007
was about 6.6 billion.
€ Next, what is the area of the Isle of Wight?
According to the Macmillan Encyclopedia, this is 380 sq km
(147 sq miles).
€ Finally, we need to make a sensible guess as to how many
people could be fitted into one square metre of space.
Assuming they are all standing up (and breathing in) let’s
guess that ten people could be squeezed into such a space.

Appendix O. World population 287

Appendix N. Safe travel 287
 So, now for the calculation.

Total area, in square metres = 380 × 1 000 000

Number of people who would fit
into this area = 380 × 1 000 000 × 10
= 3.8 billion

Since this figure is less than the 6.6 billion who are estimated to
populate the globe, the answer would appear to be that, even if
all the trees, houses, cows and lamp-posts were to be removed,
it simply couldn’t be done.

As a footnote to this investigation, it is worth pointing out that

this claim has been around for many decades, over which period the
world’s population has grown considerably. It is estimated that the
population is increasing at a rate of roughly 18 per cent each decade.
This means that estimates of future world populations, decade by
decade, can be made by multiplying the present estimate by 1.18.

For example, to make an estimate of the population in 2017,

multiply by 1.18, thus:

6.6 billion × 1.18 = 7.8 billion

We can make backward projections in a similar way, but dividing

by 1.18 instead of multiplying.

An estimate of the population in 1997, 1987 and so on can be

found as follows:

1997 estimate = 6.6 billion ÷ 1.18 = 5.59 billion

1987 estimate = 5.59 billion ÷ 1.18 = 4.74 billion
1977 estimate = 4.74 billion ÷ 1.18 = 4.02 billion
1967 estimate = 4.02 billion ÷ 1.18 = 3.41 billion

So it would seem that, in 1967, the claim wasn’t entirely

preposterous. And there might even have been enough room
for the cows!

28
Taking it further

Websites and organizations

A+B Books, who write and publish mathematics books for use
with a graphics calculator
www.AplusB.co.uk

Association of Teachers of Mathematics (UK)

www.atm.org.uk/

The author’s personal website. Enter the ‘Maths Portal’ for even
more mathematical treats!
www.alantgraham.me.uk

The author’s and Roger Duke’s free collection of maths applets

www.mathsapplets.co.uk

Bournemouth University applets (computer animations)

demonstrating mathematical principles
http://mathinsite.bmth.ac.uk/html/applets.html

Coventry University Mathematics Support Centre for Mathematics

Education
https://cuportal.coventry.ac.uk/C13/MSC/default.aspx

Mathematical Association (UK)

www.m-a.org.uk/

Mathpuzzle contains a range of puzzles and other maths resources

www.mathpuzzle.com/

Taking it further 289

 MathsNet contains a wide range of puzzles, books and software
http://www.mathsnet.net/

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (USA)

www.nctm.org

Open University Mathematics courses

www.mathematics.open.ac.uk

Oundle School site, with many useful resources and links to other
sites worldwide
http://www.argonet.co.uk/oundlesch/mlink.html

UK National Statistics online

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/

University of Plymouth Mathematics support materials

www.tech.plym.ac.uk/maths/resources/PDFLaTeX/mathaid.html

Reading list

Barrow, John D., Pi in the Sky: Counting, Thinking and Being

(London: Penguin, 1993). An exploration of where maths comes
from and how it is performed.

Blastland, M. and Dilnot, A., The Tiger That Isn’t: Seeing

Through a World of Numbers (London: Profile Books, 2008).
Mathematics in the real world – both funny and highly
informative.

Eastaway, Rob and Wells, David, Mindbenders and

Brainteasers (London: Robson Books, 2005). A collection of
100 puzzles and conundrums, old and new.

Eastaway, Rob and Wyndham, Jeremy, How Long is a Piece of

String? (London: Robson Books, 2002). Examples of mathematics
in everyday life.

29
Eastaway, Rob and Wyndham, Jeremy, Why Do Buses Come in
Threes? (London: Robson Books, 1998). Practical uses for various
mathematical topics, including probability, Venn diagrams and
prime numbers.

Flannery, Sarah, In Code: A Mathematical Journey (London:

Profile Books, 2000). A collection of problems with solutions and
explanations, based on the author’s experiences of growing up in a
mathematical home.

Goldacre, Ben, Bad Science (London: Harper Perennial, 2009).

One of the best books I’ve come across for debunking myths
about medicine, beauty products, brain-training, homeopathy
and much more. This book should be on the National
Curriculum.

Graham, Alan, Improve Your Maths (Teach Yourself Your Evening

Class) (London: Hodder Education, 2008). The combination of
written and DVD formats should give you that extra leg up which
you may not get from a book alone.

Graham, Alan, Teach Yourself Statistics (London: Hodder

Education, 2008). A straightforward and accessible account
of the big ideas of statistics with a minimum of hard
mathematics.

Haighton, June et al., Maths: the Basic Skills (Cheltenham: Nelson

Thornes, 2004). A traditional textbook on basic mathematics
based on the Adult Numeracy Core Curriculum.

Huntley, H.E., The Divine Proportion, Study in Mathematical

Beauty (New York: Dover, 1970). Applications in art and nature
of the ‘Golden Ratio’.

Ifrah, Georges, The Universal History of Numbers (London: The

Harvill Press, 1998). A detailed book (translated from French)
about the history of numbers and counting from prehistory to the
age of the computer.

Taking it further 291

 Paulos, John Allen, Innumeracy – Mathematical Illiteracy and its
Consequences (London: Penguin, 1990). Real-world examples of
innumeracy, including stock scams, risk perception and election
statistics.

Pó lya, G., How to Solve It (London: Penguin, 1990). A classic text

on mathematical problem solving that is well known around the
world.

Potter, Lawrence, Mathematics Minus Fear (London: Marion

Boyars Publishers Ltd, 2006). A romp through school mathematics
that takes in puzzles and gambling.

Singh, Simon, The Code Book (London: Fourth Estate, 2000).

A history of codes and ciphers and their modern applications in
electronic security.

Singh, Simon, Fermat’s Last Theorem (London: Fourth Estate,

1998). An account of Andrew Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last
Theorem, but also outlining some problems that have interested
mathematicians over many centuries.

Stewart, Ian, From Here to Infinity (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1996). An introduction to how mathematical ideas are
developing today.

Stewart, Ian, Does God Play Dice? (London: Penguin, 1997). An

introduction to the theory and practice of chaos and fractals.

Stewart, Ian, Letters to a Young Mathematician (New York:

Basic Books, 2006). What the author wishes he had known about
mathematics when he was a student.

Stewart, Ian, Taming the Infinite (London: Quercus Publishing

plc., 2008). A clear and interesting account of the history of
mathematics, aimed at the non-technical reader.

29
Index
accurate measurement, 119– with formulas (algebra),
22, 157–61
255–7 knowing what sum to do,
addition, 31–5 50–4
adding and subtracting multiplication, 42–6
fractions, 67–9 properties of numbers,
calculator addition, 32–3 27–31
mental addition, 33–4 shopping for a best buy,
pencil and paper addition, 229–32
34–5 subtraction, 36–41
adult learners, 5–6 calculator inversions (puzzle),
alcohol, measures of, 265–9 176
algebra see formulas calculator snooker (puzzle),
analogue clocks, reading the 182
24-hour clock, 233–4 calculators, 7–8, 14–15
APR (annual percentage rate), addition, 32–3
and buying on credit, 261 division, 46–7
area, metric and imperial units, multiplication, 42–3
125–6 subtraction, 36
children
barcharts and piecharts, helping your child, 8–10
135–9 and numbers, 24–5
barcodes, 270–3 clocks, the 24-hour clock,
bells, the bells (puzzle), 175 233–7
bills, supermarket, 243–6 confidence, 5–6, 8
bus number game (puzzle), 170 conversion
bus timetables, 238–42 12-hour to 24-hour time,
buying on credit, 259–61 235–7
see also shopping metric and imperial units,
128–30
calculating, 27–60 cooking, 253–8
addition, 31–5 counting numbers, 15–17
answers to exercises, 55–9 credit, buying on, 259–61
division, 46–50

Index
 decimal point, 80–1 find the numbers (puzzle), 178
decimals, 76–93
answers to exercises, 89–
92
decimal fractions, 77–80
the decimal point, 80–1
dividing fractions, 84–5
four rules with decimals,
82–3
overview, 85–9
diagnostic quiz, 210–15
comments on the solutions,
218–26
solutions, 215–18
see also puzzles
digital clocks, the 24-hour
clock,
234
diversions see diagnostic quiz;
puzzles
division, 46–50
calculator division, 46–7
decimal fractions, 84–5
mental division, 48
multiplying and
dividing, 69–70
pencil and paper division,
48–9
picturing division, 47–8
drinking, measures of alcohol,
265–9

equivalent fractions, 66–7

even and odd numbers, 27–8
explore and explain the pattern
(puzzle), 178

fear of numbers, 9
finance, buying on credit, 259–61
see also shopping

29
finger tables (puzzle), 172
formulas (algebra), 151–68 hundreds, 21–3
algebra as shorthand,
153–7 answers to
exercises, 165–7
calculations with
formulas, 157–61
is algebra irrelevant?, 151–3
proving with algebra, 161–4
four 4s (puzzle), 177
four rules, 31, 50–2, 82–3
fractions, 61–75
adding and subtracting,
67–9
answers to exercises,
73–4 changing into
percentages, 97–8
decimal fractions, 77–80
dividing decimal fractions,
84–5
equivalent fractions,
66–7 multiplying and
dividing, 69–70
the number line, 65–6
picturing a fraction, 64–5
ratio and proportion, 70–
2 what is a fraction?, 62–
4
free offers, and junk mail, 274–6
furniture, measuring, 262–4

games see diagnostic quiz;

puzzles
gold pieces (puzzle), 180
grams, calculating price per
gram, 231
graphs see statistical graphs
guess my number (puzzle),
171 guess the number
(puzzle), 181

Index
 imperial units see metric and 30
imperial units
initially speaking (puzzle), 181
interest, buying on credit, 259–
61

junk mail, and free offers, 274–6

large and small sums (puzzle),

180
length, metric and imperial units,
124–5
line graphs and scattergraphs,
139–43
logically speaking (puzzle), 175
lottery tickets, 277–83

magic squares (puzzle), 173

magic triangles (puzzle), 174
mathematical stimulation, 8–9
measures of alcohol, 265–9
measuring, 113–33
accurate measuring, 119–22
answers to exercises, 130–2
how to measure, 117–19
metric and imperial units,
123–30
rooms and furniture, 262–4
what to measure, 113–15
why measure?, 115–17
mental calculations
addition, 33–4
division, 48
multiplication, 43–4
subtraction, 37–8
supermarket bills, 243–6
metric and imperial units, 123–
30
area, 125–6
conversion between, 128–

29
 length, 124–5
measuring, 123–30
volume, 126–7
minus, 15
money see
shopping
motivation, 6, 8–9
multiplication
calculator multiplication,
42–3
and division, 69–70
mental multiplication, 43–4
pencil and paper
multiplication, 44–6
picturing multiplication, 43

National Lottery tickets, 277–83

negative numbers, 53–4
Nim (puzzle), 182
number line, 24, 65–6
number sequences, spreadsheets
for, 202–3
numbers, 11–26
answers to exercises,
25 children and
numbers, 24–5
the counting numbers,
15–17
hundreds, thousands and
beyond, 21–3
ordering numbers, 17–18
properties of, 27–31
random numbers, 279–82
real life examples, 11–13
tens and units, 18–20

odd and even numbers, 27–

8 ordering numbers, 17–18
organizations, for
mathematics, 289–90

Index
 pencil and paper puzzles, games and diversions,
addition, 34–5 169–91
division, 48–9 answers to puzzles, 185–91
multiplication, 44–6 the bells, the bells, 175
subtraction, 38–41 bus number game, 170
percentages, 94–112 calculator inversions, 176
answers to exercises, calculator snooker, 182
108–11 explore and explain the
buying on credit, 259–61 pattern, 178
changing fractions into, 97–8 find the numbers, 178
increases and reductions, finger tables, 172
100–5 four 4s, 177
problems with, 105–8 gold pieces, 180
on a spreadsheet, 204–6 guess my number, 171
uses of, 98–100 guess the number, 181
what is a percentage?, initially speaking, 181
95–6 large and small sums, 180
picturing logically speaking, 175
decimal fractions, 78–80 magic squares, 173
division, 47–8 magic triangles, 174
multiplication, 43 Nim, 182
subtraction, 36–7 place invaders, 183
piecharts and barcharts, 135–9 pub cricket, 171
place invaders (puzzle), 183 return journey, 178
population, facts and figures, story of 12, 173
287–8 1089 and all that, 179
prices upside down, 174
calculating a best buy, see also diagnostic quiz
229–32
calculating price per gram, quizzes see diagnostic quiz; puzzles
231
understanding barcodes, railway timetables, 238–42
270–3 random numbers, 279–82
see also shopping ratio and proportion, 70–2
prime numbers, 29–30 reading list, for mathematics,
proportion and ratio, 70–2 290–2
proving, with algebra, 161–4 receipts, shopping, 247–9
pub cricket (puzzle), 171 see also shopping

29
recipes, 253–8
subtraction
rectangular numbers, 28–9
adding and subtracting
return journey (puzzle), 178
fractions, 67–9
rooms, measuring, 262–4
calculator subtraction, 36
mental subtraction, 37–8
scale drawings, rooms and
and ‘minus’, 15
furniture, 262–4
pencil and paper subtraction,
scaling up, recipe amounts, 257–
38–41
8 scattergraphs and line graphs,
picturing subtraction, 36–7
139–43
supermarket shopping see
school maths, 5–6, 6–7
shopping
shopping
barcodes, 270–3
1089 and all that (puzzle), 179
buying a TV set, 259–61
tens and units, 18–20
calculating a best buy,
thousands, 21–3
229–32
time, reading the 24-hour clock,
price per gram, 231
233–7
receipts, 247–9
timetables, bus and railway,
supermarket bills, 243–6
238–42
VAT checking, 250–2
travel safety, and accident figures,
spreadsheets, 192–208
284–6
answers to exercises, 207–8
TV sets, buying, 259–61
how to use a spreadsheet,
twenty four-hour clock, 233–7
196–202
more things to do, 206–7
upside down (puzzle), 174
number sequences, 202–3
overview, 192–5
VAT, 250–2
percentages, 204–6
see also shopping
why use a spreadsheet?, 196
volume, metric and imperial
square numbers, 30–1
units, 126–7
statistical graphs, 134–50
answers to exercises, 148–9
websites for mathematics, 289–90
barcharts and piecharts,
weights
135–9
calculating weight per
misleading graphs, 144–8
penny, 230
scattergraphs and line
cooking and recipes, 253–8
graphs, 139–43
story of 12 (puzzle), 173
zero, 115

Index
 Credits
Front cover: © Last Resort/Photodisc/Getty Images

Back cover: © Jakub Semeniuk/iStockphoto.com, © Royalty-

Free/Corbis, © agencyby/iStockphoto.com, © Andy Cook/
iStockphoto.com, © Christopher Ewing/iStockphoto.com,
© zebicho – Fotolia.com, © Geoffrey Holman/iStockphoto.com,
© Photodisc/Getty Images, © James C. Pruitt/iStockphoto.com,
© Mohamed Saber – Fotolia.com

30
Notes