11 Plus Exams Forum

Good morning all,
Maths is not exactly my strong point after 20+ leaving school. So i`m trying my best to help my DS and although the maths test may contain very little algebra, I thought I would try to show him some to help him, as I think his school has just touched on the subject. I printed off this morning some free work sheets on algebra and have come across a * sign in some of the sums, I guess the / means division.
Sorry if this seems a stupid question, but have been up half the night and can`t seem to think straight to try to work this out.

* is sometimes used for X (times) particularly on computers.
/ is division.

Thanks mitasol, I can now carry on.

Using * also helps avoid confusion with X the unknown and x to multiply.

DS1 really struggled with algebra, found some nice graphical balancing scales type examples to find the unknown on I think BBC bitesize.

DS2 just accepted it but got thrown when there are two unknowns x and y which is probably a step to far!

Another technique if it is multiple choice and you have the time is to test the answers, e.g if 3x+2=2x+5 and choices are 1,2,3,4,5 then trial and error to find the balance.

Algebra is beautiful, and a love of it could lead to great success in maths at a much later stage. In the Kent test, I don't think answering the algebra questions (as there were so few in the past, and certainly last year there were none) would make any difference as to whether it was a pass or fail.

So are you sure you want to teach it to your child if you are feeling so rusty, or is it an area of maths that you love yourself? If not, I'd be tempted to help your child by concentrating on other more important areas of the 11+ syllabus including speed and accuracy, and keep the algebra for enjoyment at secondary school.