Everyday Mathematics · one of four sections

Everyday Mathematics for the maths olympiad

Word problems with the maths hidden inside a situation. The difficulty is almost never the arithmetic; it is deciding what to calculate before you calculate it.

We have written 300 Everyday Mathematics questions by hand across classes 3 to 8.

Try two of them

One from a class 4 paper and one from class 7, so you can see how the same section grows. Have a go before opening the answer.

4 pointsClass 4Question 21

A rope is 5 metres long. Ria cuts off pieces 80 centimetres long, one after another, until she cannot cut another whole piece. How long is the piece left over?

Show the answer and how to see it

Answer: 20 centimetres

5 metres is 500 centimetres. Six pieces of 80 centimetres use 480 centimetres, and a seventh piece would need 560. So 500 take away 480 leaves 20 centimetres.

Why a child picks 80 centimetres: 80 centimetres is the length of each PIECE she cuts, not what is left.

Sit the whole paper this came from

5 pointsClass 7Question 36

A trader sells two watches for 1200 rupees each. On one he makes a 25% profit and on the other a 25% loss. Overall, does he gain or lose, and by how many rupees?

Show the answer and how to see it

Answer: A loss of 160 rupees

The two 25% figures are taken of DIFFERENT cost prices, so they cannot cancel. Recover each cost price from its selling price before comparing anything.

Why a child picks Neither, he breaks even: The percentages match but the cost prices do not. The watch sold at a loss cost him more to begin with.

Sit the whole paper this came from

What this section actually tests

1Money: buying, change, discounts, profit and loss, and best value between two offers.
2Time: durations across an hour boundary, timetables, and how long ago or how long until.
3Measurement in a real setting: how much paint, how many tiles, how far in total.
4Reading data off a table, a bar chart or a pictogram and doing something with it.
5Rates and sharing: how many each, how long for a group, how much per unit.

The method, in order

Worth saying out loud the first few times. The order matters more than the speed.

1. Read it twice before touching a number
The first read tells you the story, the second tells you the question. Children who calculate on the first read usually answer a different question.
2. Write the numbers down with their labels
"12 pens" and "12 rupees" behave completely differently. Keeping the label attached stops them being added together.
3. Decide the operation in words first
Say "I need the difference" or "I need how many groups" before you write anything. The words choose the operation; the numbers do not.
4. Ask whether the answer is sensible
Change that is more than the note, or a journey time longer than the day, means something went the wrong way round.

The four ways children lose marks here

These are not guesses. Each one is a wrong option we deliberately built into real questions, which is why every one of them feels reasonable at the time.

Adding every number in the question

The fix: Some numbers are there to be ignored. Cross out the ones the question does not need before starting.

Losing an hour across the boundary

The fix: For times crossing an hour, go up to the hour first, then on. Never subtract the digits as if they were ordinary numbers.

Giving the total when the question asked for the change

The fix: Underline the last five words of the question. That is almost always where the actual demand lives.

Missing the per-unit step

The fix: If a question gives a price for several and asks about a different number, find the price for one first.

How many Everyday Mathematics questions are on the paper

Class	Everyday Mathematics	Questions on the paper
Class 3	10	35
Class 4	10	35
Class 5	10	50
Class 6	10	50
Class 7	10	50
Class 8	10	50

Section names and the shape of the paper follow the Science Olympiad Foundation olympiad blueprint. We are not affiliated with them, these questions are our own, and the official pattern is theirs to confirm.

Questions parents ask

Why is Everyday Mathematics separate from Mathematical Reasoning?

Because it tests a different failure. Mathematical Reasoning asks whether a child can do the maths; Everyday Mathematics asks whether they can find the maths inside a paragraph. Plenty of children can do one and not the other.

How many questions is it?

In our papers it is 10 questions in every class, from 3 to 8, so it is a larger share of a class 3 paper than of a class 8 one.

Is it easier than the rest of the paper?

The arithmetic usually is. The reading is not, and for a child who reads quickly it is often where the careless marks go.

Does practice here help with school word problems?

Directly, yes. It is the same skill, and it is the skill most word-problem practice at school does not isolate.

Practise it inside a whole paper

One section at a time is how you fix a weakness. A full timed paper is how you find out whether it is fixed.

Sit a full paper SOF IMO preparation

The other three sections: Logical Reasoning, Mathematical Reasoning, Achievers Section.