Transum Software

Unitary Method

Test your understanding of the Unitary Method for solving real life proportion problems with this online, self-marking quiz.

Level 1 Level 2 Proportion Exam-Style Description Help Ratio

This is level 2: calculations requiring written working and the use of a calculator You can earn a trophy if you get at least 7 questions correct.

If sixteen bricks weigh 80kg. What would seventeen bricks weigh?

Bricks

Working:

kg Correct Wrong
If twenty one girls can plant 252 trees in a day. How many trees could twenty six girls plant in a day?

Working:

trees Correct Wrong
If twenty two workers can dig 220 holes in an hour. How many holes could twenty four workers dig in an hour?

Working:

holes Correct Wrong
If eighteen coins weigh 72g. What would nineteen coins weigh?

Working:

g Correct Wrong
If sixteen buses can seat 736 people. How many people could thirty four buses seat?

Working:

people Correct Wrong
Nineteen identical pipes laid end to end make a length of 171m. What length would thirty five pipes make if they are laid end to end?

Working:

m Correct Wrong
30 toy building blocks placed one on top of another reach a height of 90cm. How high would 69 blocks be if placed one on top of the other?

Working:

cm Correct Wrong
1440g of flour is needed to make a special cake for 16 people. How much flour would be needed to make a cake for 33 people?

Working:

g Correct Wrong
A vehicle travels one hundred and sixty five km on 33 litres of fuel. How far would it travel on forty five litres?

Working:

km Correct Wrong
Another vehicle travels three hundred km on 30 litres of fuel. How far would it travel on forty eight litres?

Working:

km Correct Wrong
Check

Instructions

Try your best to answer the questions above. Type your answers into the boxes provided leaving no spaces. As you work through the exercise regularly click the "check" button. If you have any wrong answers, do your best to do corrections but if there is anything you don't understand, please ask your teacher for help.

When you have got all of the questions correct you may want to print out this page and paste it into your exercise book. If you keep your work in an ePortfolio you could take a screen shot of your answers and paste that into your Maths file.

Why am I learning this?

Mathematicians are not the people who find Maths easy; they are the people who enjoy how mystifying, puzzling and hard it is. Are you a mathematician?

Comment recorded on the 8 May 'Starter of the Day' page by Mr Smith, West Sussex, UK:

"I am an NQT and have only just discovered this website. I nearly wet my pants with joy.
To the creator of this website and all of those teachers who have contributed to it, I would like to say a big THANK YOU!!! :)."

Comment recorded on the 10 April 'Starter of the Day' page by Mike Sendrove, Salt Grammar School, UK.:

"A really useful set of resources - thanks. Is the collection available on CD? Are solutions available?"

Each month a newsletter is published containing details of the new additions to the Transum website and a new puzzle of the month.

The newsletter is then duplicated as a podcast which is available on the major delivery networks. You can listen to the podcast while you are commuting, exercising or relaxing.

Transum breaking news is available on Twitter @Transum and if that's not enough there is also a Transum Facebook page.

Featured Activity

Newsletter

Newsletter

The Transum Newsletter for May 2024 has just been published. Click on the image above to read about the latest developments on this site and try to solve the puzzle of the month. You can read the newsletter online or listen to it by downloading the podcast.

Answers

There are answers to this exercise but they are available in this space to teachers, tutors and parents who have logged in to their Transum subscription on this computer.

A Transum subscription unlocks the answers to the online exercises, quizzes and puzzles. It also provides the teacher with access to quality external links on each of the Transum Topic pages and the facility to add to the collection themselves.

Subscribers can manage class lists, lesson plans and assessment data in the Class Admin application and have access to reports of the Transum Trophies earned by class members.

If you would like to enjoy ad-free access to the thousands of Transum resources, receive our monthly newsletter, unlock the printable worksheets and see our Maths Lesson Finishers then sign up for a subscription now:

Subscribe

Go Maths

Learning and understanding Mathematics, at every level, requires learner engagement. Mathematics is not a spectator sport. Sometimes traditional teaching fails to actively involve students. One way to address the problem is through the use of interactive activities and this web site provides many of those. The Go Maths page is an alphabetical list of free activities designed for students in Secondary/High school.

Maths Map

Are you looking for something specific? An exercise to supplement the topic you are studying at school at the moment perhaps. Navigate using our Maths Map to find exercises, puzzles and Maths lesson starters grouped by topic.

Teachers

If you found this activity useful don't forget to record it in your scheme of work or learning management system. The short URL, ready to be copied and pasted, is as follows:

Alternatively, if you use Google Classroom, all you have to do is click on the green icon below in order to add this activity to one of your classes.

It may be worth remembering that if Transum.org should go offline for whatever reason, there is a mirror site at Transum.info that contains most of the resources that are available here on Transum.org.

When planning to use technology in your lesson always have a plan B!

Saurav Luitel, Bhojpur

Monday, November 28, 2011

"I like the best web site of all I known that it was the very good as well as better for the student life thank for the team who make this web site."

Claire Longmooor, Trick Question That Went Viral

Saturday, October 12, 2019

"An orchestra of 120 players takes 40 minutes to play Beethoven's 9th Symphony. How long would it take for 60 players to play the symphony? Let P be number of players and T the time playing."

Apple

©1997-2024 WWW.TRANSUM.ORG

Description of Levels

Close

Close

Level 1 - Calculations that can be done without a calculator.

Level 2 - Calculations requiring written working and the use of a calculator.

Proportion Direct and inverse proportion questions.

Exam Style questions are in the style of GCSE or IB/A-level exam paper questions and worked solutions are available for Transum subscribers.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

Log in Sign up

These problems can be solved using the unitary method. This is a technique in mathematics for solving particular types of problems. It involves scaling down one of the variables to a single unit, i.e. 1, and then performing the operation necessary to alter it to the desired value.

For example if six coins weigh 66g. What would seventeen coins weigh?

Coin Coin Coin
Coin Coin Coin

Consider the weight of one coin first

1 coin weighs 11g  (66 ÷ 6)

Now it is easy to calculate the cost of seventeen coins

17 coins weigh 187g (17 x 11)

Don't wait until you have finished the exercise before you click on the 'Check' button. Click it often as you work through the questions to see if you are answering them correctly.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

Log in Sign up

Close

Close