Simultaneous Equation

[yoyo123]

I always start by saying look at the information we have, it's like a puzzle.

As G55 says, at KS2. maths is more about having a feel for number and using logical thinking to work things out (plus diagrams, we like diagrams!)

[ToadMum]

In terms of teaching, its just a case of looking what information the question gives you. It tells you how much 6 of each item would cost. So if you only need 1 of each item, you divide the total by 6. I think you're overcomplicating it.

So :
You have 6 lollies and 3 ice creams which cost X.
You have 6 drinks and 3 ice creams which cost Y. If you bought everything, you'd have 6 lollies, 6 ice creams and 6 drinks. The total cost would be £17.76.

If you only wanted 1 of everything, you'd divide the total cost by 6 (so the answer is £2.96).

We have to make the assumption that nothing is on a 'buy two, get one free' offer here, of course...

[Northdad]

Thank you all for your kind suggestions. This is really useful for a diy parent daunted by a blank looking child who, during maths sessions, is often convinced that the parent is half-vulcan.

[yoyo123]

In terms of teaching, its just a case of looking what information the question gives you. It tells you how much 6 of each item would cost. So if you only need 1 of each item, you divide the total by 6. I think you're overcomplicating it.

So :
You have 6 lollies and 3 ice creams which cost X.
You have 6 drinks and 3 ice creams which cost Y. If you bought everything, you'd have 6 lollies, 6 ice creams and 6 drinks. The total cost would be £17.76.

If you only wanted 1 of everything, you'd divide the total cost by 6 (so the answer is £2.96).

We have to make the assumption that nothing is on a 'buy two, get one free' offer here, of course...

Unless stated otherwise, the premise is "All things being equal"

[Guest55]

Northdad - why don't you get her to make up her own questions like the ones she has struggled with?

I find that students understand problems if they are used to making them up.

[Northdad]

Good idea. I think we will do that. Thanks again.

[russet]

Questions like this, which at first seem like solving simultaneous equations, but turn out not to be, are common in these type of tests. The clue is in the question asking to find the price of a number of things added together. Adding all the sums together often gives the answer, but mainly it is just experience of doing questions like this before the test, so the child does not try to work out the cost of individual items.
This can be more of a problem for children who have done simultaneous equations and, after a brief glance, think they know how to solve it and set off in the wrong direction.

[ToadMum]

By the time that DS2 took our local 11+ (CSSE, at the time, maths and English papers written in-house with a GL VR paper, now just two papers written in-house), he had attended maths classes two years above his own in his own school, some after school maths sessions at a local grammar along with a lad from another primary and attended normal year 7 maths lessons with one of the forms at the same grammar in year 5. What with everyone going on about 'the 11+ syllabus' and having to cover year 7 topics etc, I did actually ask him after the event whether he felt that anything he had done above his 'normal' maths had been necessary for the 11+ maths paper and was told a definite No.

As the representative from the scary CEM is reported as saying in a talk at Townley Grammar School over in 'Bexley', the thing is that knowledge that children can be expected to have learnt at the point of testing is asked for in 'different' ways (I am paraphrasing here.help but that was the gist of it).

So as this question nicely demonstrates, what may look like something requiring advanced teaching (and presumably if it turned up on a year 8 end of year paper, the pupil would be expected to treat it as a simultaneous equation) actually requires the ability to think.

(Having said that, I must admit that I sat and stared at it - and did a bit of scribbling on the back of an envelope - before the obvious hit me ).

[Guest55]

So as this question nicely demonstrates, what may look like something requiring advanced teaching (and presumably if it turned up on a year 8 end of year paper, the pupil would be expected to treat it as a simultaneous equation) actually requires the ability to think.

I would put this in a Y8 class test - with NO expectation of any equations. Someone who 'decides' to use equations would waste time forming them and probably go into auto-pilot to try to find individual costs. It would tell me a lot about who is a real 'thinker'.

[11+pass]

Northdad, I recognise this sample paper very well! My DD sat the Group 1 consortium exams this year. I agree with Guest55 that this is a logic question. However I did teach my DD how to do simultaneous equations to be on the safe side! What's schools is your DD sitting for? You can get the answers to the consortium maths past papers!