11 Plus Exams Forum

I've just bought a pack of GL Assessment practice papers ( variety 5 ) and the maths paper features this question, which I have no idea how to do or indeed how they arrived at the answer. I look forward to your brainy replies


Hannah made some biscuits for a party .

She put them all out on plates.

Each plate has the same number of biscuits.

How many biscuits could Hannah have made ?


Answer ........21.

Is there really no other information in the question? Like how many plates, children, how many on the baking sheet? Without anything else I have no idea how they reached this answer - why not 14 biscuits, 2 each on 7 plates, or 8 biscuits 4 each on 2 plates??

Impossible question me thinks!! But I stand to be corrected by someone more clever!!

There are five options on the answer sheet! 13, 17, 19, 21 and 23. So the only answer that is divisible by something else is 21!

Oh ! I didn't think of that ! Seems a bit strange...but just goes to show how multiple choice really does give you a bit of extra help ! I am just looking through the maths before I give it to DS2 later on...so didn't look at the answer sheet. I wonder if he will work it out ?

If he doesn't this time, I bet he does on all future questions!!!

Faitaccompli .........can I ask you re. the GL Assessment practice paper packs...I think there are 8 in total, do you know if they are all the same level of difficulty ?? This paper doesn't really look that hard ( apart from the biscuit question )

No idea - sorry - we did a couple by mistake before we realised we were only doing VR (shows what a numpty I was!) - however in the VR papers, the 1-4 are easier than 5-8 - but that could be a total red herring!

I've just asked DS2 to look at the question and showed him the answer sheet with the options...and after about 5 minutes of painful reading aloud he announced it could only be 21 ! So, I'm now officially dimmer then my 10 year old son !!

Ah - but you gave him the answer sheet - would he have looked at that if you had not shown it to him?

I gave him the question and told him to fill in the box on the answer sheet with his answer...like he would normally do, so I don't think he knew to" look " for the answer ...I have told him now that the answer is of course in the answers but he knows that from the VR papers anyway. Still seems a bit strange...but they do like to find little ways at catching out children who don't think outside the box. ( like me ) .