11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi
Can anyone help with these questions:

In a garden there are 3 types of flowers. One third of them are roses . A quarter of the rest are carnations. There are 30 asters in the garden. How many carnations are there?
answer 10

Q. One word in the brackets is like the other three.

oil, coal,peat (gas, grass, soil, sand)
Answer gas

Many thanks.

I haven't looked at at the flowers one, but the other one is gas because it is a fuel like the other 3.

Let’s take that the total number of flowers in the garden are x
Number of roses are x/3
Number of carnations = a quarter of the rest = a quarter of the two-third of the total = ¼ times 2x/3 = x/6
The reminder is x minus (x/3 + x/6) = x/2 (half of the total), which is the same as the number of asters i.e. 30

From the above calculations, we can derive that the total number of flowers in the garden are 60
A sixth of them are carnations i.e. 60/6 = 10

Is this the 11+ standard - seems difficult to me.

Thanks

First question is deceptive. Take roses off the menu, as they aren't relevant, and it is really asking this:

There are two types of flowers in a garden. A quarter of them are carnations and thirty of them are asters. How many are carnations?
Carnations= 1/4 therefore asters=3/4.
30 is 3/4 of 40.
So 1/4 of 40 is 10.
It's easy disguised as difficult by adding the roses to throw you off the scent (forgive the pun.)

Thank you for your message - most informative and easy when you know how !! Im still amazed that y they wouldnt trick a poor 10 year old with that. I know if I asked that as a straight Maths Q my son would know it immediately - dress it up and who knows. Worrying times.

Thank you again.

And good luck

Hi, yes, second answer is gas as it is a fuel. The tricky part is knowing that peat is a fuel whereas some children will only know it as a form of soil, or not have heard of it at all.