Mathstest disaster

[admylin]

Can anyone help me explain this to ds, he had a maths test disaster recently and had questions like this to answer :

2 diggers take 14 months to dig a driveway to a sea port.
a) The work has to be completed in 4 months. How many diggers will be needed?
b) How long would 8 diggers take?

He's attempted to answer but in such a confused way. What are these kind of maths called in english so I can look up some explanations on the internet (we're doing it all in German and it's called Zuordnungen)

I think it's a) 7 diggers and b) 3.5 moths.

1 digger would take twice the time of 2 so 28 months. So to find out how many diggers needed for 4 months it's 28 divided by 4 = 7.

8 diggers would take 1/8 of the time so 3.5 months (28 divided by 8).

I'm afraid I don't know what these types of questions are called. Sorry.

I would call them a nightmare.

Thanks chaos and I agree deadei!

you need to work out how much time 1 digger would take (as chaos says) and then scale that to 4 months for the first, and divide by 8 for the second.

The problem with these things is usually not the maths it is understanding the question. If they gave it you in numbers it would be easy.

You need to build his confidence in deciphering the questions - so just make up a load yourself, change the numbers and the scenario and help him work out how to extract the maths from it.

I agree with throcken. It's not necessarily the mechanics that is difficult -it's the deciphering.

With my DCs I tend to get the to extract the maths from the question first, write it down as a sum and then complete the task that way.

Good Luck.

This is the next question:

Mrs M. puts 75.5 litre diesel in her bus and pays 91,40Euro.
a) How much would she pay for 30, 40 and 60 litre?
b) How much diesel would she get for 50Euro?

Basically he has to figure out what 1 litre costs and in a) he has to multiply by 30, 40 or 60 and in b) divide.

Would they be allowed to use a calculator in UK for this type of thing?

I think 'word problems' is what you need to look for

He's 11 in Year 6. Would they use calculators for thatsort of thing in UK?

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Ooh My first star in over 30 20 years.

I am very reward motivated. Shame I don't get laundry stars.

These are called 'word problems' in primary schools.
You can find some here.
They help children with problem solving and encourage them to extract the relevant facts in order to do the sum