11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi all,

Heena had some stickers. She gave 18 stickers to her sister and 5/7 of the stickers to Mary. Then, she used 3/4 of the remainder for her project and had 35 stickers left. How many stickers did she have at first?

Any easy and quick methods would be much appreciated.
Thanks

Try working backwards - if she had 35 left then how many did she use for her project? (Hint - the 35 must have been what fraction?)

Once you've got that then undo the first bit.

Have a go and get back to us ...

This is another example of where I would use bars. Like G55 says work backwards.

Remainder is a bar cut into 4 equal pieces with 35 in the final piece.
This will give you the remaining stickers.

The next bar will be cut into 7 pieces with 5 of the 7 labelled Mary.
The other two pieces will be the total of the 18 given to the sister and the total of the first bar that you drew.
This gives you 2/7. Halving will give you 1/7.
Multiplying by 7 will give you the original total.

Thank-you Guest 55 for your suggestion.
Thank-you Moved. That helped in having a clear picture. This bar calculation
is a brilliant idea,