- Equal angles in a Z shape on a pair of parallel lines
Alternate angles
提示One is on each side of the crossing line.
为什么A line crossing two parallel lines makes alternate (Z) angles equal, corresponding (F) angles equal and co-interior (C) angles that sum to 180°. Competition diagrams hide the Z; look for it whenever two lines are marked parallel.
- 5% written as a fraction in its simplest form is one ____.
twentieth
提示5 out of 100 — cancel by 5.
为什么Small percentages are worth knowing as fractions: 5% is 1/20, 10% is 1/10, 20% is 1/5, 25% is 1/4. When 90% of a job is done, a tenth remains.
- A 3 × 3 magic square uses the numbers 1 to 9 once each. What total must every row, column and diagonal make?
15
提示Add all nine numbers, then share the total equally among the rows.
为什么Whatever nine consecutive numbers a magic square uses, the line total is their sum divided by three — for 4 to 12 it is 24. Knowing the line total turns a magic-square question into simple subtraction.
- A proportion of a group is given as a fraction with big numbers, and you must find the same proportion of a new total. What do you do to the fraction first?
Simplify it fully
提示Get the numbers small before you scale them up again.
为什么Cancel 216/480 to 9/20 before finding the same proportion of 800: 9/20 × 800 = 360 is far easier than 216/480 × 800. Common factors are always cheaper to remove early than to carry through a calculation.
- In a right-angled isosceles triangle, the two equal angles are each ____°.
45
提示Fold a square along its diagonal.
为什么A square cut along a diagonal gives two of them. Whenever two sides from a vertex are equal and the angle between them is a right angle, the other two corners come free; when the angle between equal sides is 60°, the triangle is equilateral instead.
- A positive number is between 0 and 1. Does squaring it make it larger or smaller?
Smaller
提示Try a half: a half of a half.
为什么(½)² = ¼, which is less than ½. Squaring makes numbers bigger only above 1; between 0 and 1 it shrinks them, and square-rooting does the opposite (√¼ = ½, bigger). 'Always' statements about squaring are usually false for this reason.
- What is the square root of 169? (type the number only)
13
提示It is just above 12, whose square you know is 144.
为什么Knowing squares up to 15² = 225 and cubes up to 6³ = 216 by heart saves time all through the paper. A number divided by its own square root leaves no remainder — the root is a factor.
- Two cyclists ride towards each other along the same road. At what rate does the distance between them shrink?
Sum of their speeds
提示Each rider closes part of the gap every hour.
为什么Approaching each other, the gap closes at the combined speed; travelling the same way, it changes at the difference of the speeds. If one sets off later, first work out how far the other has gone by then, and only then use the combined speed.
- a × (b − c) = a × b − a × c
The distributive law
提示Read it right-to-left too: it is how you pull a common factor out of two products.
为什么Read it right to left and it becomes a shortcut: 17 × 83 − 17 × 23 = 17 × (83 − 23) = 17 × 60. Whenever two products share a factor, take the factor out before touching the arithmetic.
- A number is a multiple of both a and b. It must also be a multiple of which single number?
Their lowest common multiple
提示Not the product — unless the two share no factor at all.
为什么Multiples of both 4 and 9 are the multiples of 36, and there the LCM is the product because 4 and 9 share no factor. Multiples of both 4 and 6 are the multiples of 12, not 24, because 4 and 6 share the factor 2.
- A solid cube is sliced once with a single flat cut. What is the greatest number of sides the cross-section can have? (type the number only)
6
提示The cut can pass through every face of the cube at most once.
为什么Triangles, squares, rectangles, pentagons and even regular hexagons can all be cut from a cube — but never a heptagon, since a cube has only six faces to cross. Cross-section questions reward imagining the cut rather than trusting your first instinct.
- For a sorted list of numbers, the median is the ____ value, the mode is the ____ value, and the range is the biggest value minus the ____.
middle; most common; smallest
提示Three summaries, three different questions about the list.
为什么For an even-sized list the median is the mean of the two middle values. Check which average a question names before doing anything — the three answer different questions.
1★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0037
2★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0038
3★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0039
4★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0040
5★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0041
6★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0042
7★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0043
8★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0044
9★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0045
10★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0046
11★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0047
12★ KS3-MATH-JMC-0048