WorksheetsThinking Skills 1.2
Total questions: 10
Worksheet time: 30mins
A survey has shown the following relationships between parental occupation, type of school and educational success at GCSE level: Which one of the following can be inferred from these tables?
All children of managerial-class parents attend independent schools.
The majority of children whose parents are office workers attend independent schools.
School type is more important than parental occupation in determining educational success.
The parental background of children in independent schools is more restricted than that of children in comprehensive schools.
Factors other that type of school attended may be important in determining educational success.
There are 420 candidates sitting a public exam in a college. The sports hall can accommodate 210 students; once this has been filled there are other rooms available that are much smaller. The following is a list of the number of single desks that have been set up in each room:
26, 20, 24, 28, 24, 20, 24, 16, 20, 18, 26.
The rooms have sufficient space for all the candidates who are not in the sports hall. The exams officer wants to leave the same number of empty desks in each of these rooms.
What procedure should the exams officer adopt to work out how many students to have in each room?
Divide the total number of candidates by the total number of workspaces in each room and take that number away from the capacity of each of the rooms.
Add up the total capacity of the rooms, subtract that number from the total number of candidates, divide the result by the total number of rooms and then subtract that number from the capacity of each room.
Add up the total capacity of the rooms, subtract the total number of candidates from that figure, divide the result by the total number of rooms and subtract that number from the capacity of each room.
Divide the total capacity by the number of students and then take that number away from the capacity of each room.
Add up the total capacity of the rooms and divide by the total number of candidates. Multiply the result by the total number of rooms, which gives the number of students to
place in each room.
Steve and Jen are getting married and would like to have their reception in a marquee. There will be 80 people attending in total and they would like to have the most expensive tables and chairs
– eight people will sit at each table. The capacity for a marquee can be worked out using the industry standard of allowing 3 m2 per person. Price lists from the hire company they will use are given below:
£982
£1,385
£1,529
£1,637
£1,817
The maths sets at Newtown Comprehensive are identified by their teacher's name. Every year the Head of Maths gives the same test to all the maths sets at the end of year 7, calculates the average mark for each set and then produces the results on a bar chart in ascending order. He is asked to present the graphs for the last five years to the Board of Governors. Unfortunately, when they were cut and pasted onto one sheet by the Clerk to the Governors, the years were missed off.
The results for last year were as follows:
Which one of these five graphs shows last year's results?
We need a fair policy for dealing with drivers whose ability is impaired by drugs, such as cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine. Setting limits for driving under the influence of drugs may be difficult. Tests would be necessary for the levels in the blood of each of these drugs. But, such limits may not reflect the complex interactions between drugs and their effect on driving: a driver may be severely impaired but under the limit for each individual drug. Also, setting a legal limit for the use of a substance that is illegal seems self-contradictory. So to solve the problem of drug-driving there should be a new offence of driving with any level of illegal
drug in the body. This would make it much easier to catch and convict drug-drivers – the ultimate deterrent.
Which one of the following identifies the flaw in the above argument?
Some countries have legalised the drugs that impair driving ability.
Drivers whose ability was not impaired may be convicted.
Some legally available drugs may impair driving ability.
Drivers may not be aware of the effect of drugs on driving ability.
Some illegal drugs can improve driving ability.
Adding fluoride to the water supply would not, as some claim, improve dental health. If fluoride really did improve dental health, one would expect people living in areas where water is naturally
fluoridated to have healthier teeth than people whose water is fluoride free. In fact, research suggests that there is no difference in dental health between the two groups.
Which one of the following most closely parallels the reasoning used in the above argument?
If badgers still lived in this sett, there would be badger droppings at its entrance. Since there are no droppings, there are no badgers here.
The only animals in Britain that leave little piles of soil all over the lawn are moles. So those piles of soil on our lawn mean we have moles.
The chicken house needs to be secured against foxes. There are definitely foxes living in this area. If any foxes get into the chicken house, they will kill the chickens.
The strange noise we heard last night may have been a hedgehog. I cannot think what else it could have been, and I know for a fact that there are hedgehogs around here.
If there are grey squirrels in an area, it is unlikely that there are any red squirrels. The animals we just saw were grey squirrels. So there are probably not any red squirrels in this area.
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E
The graph below shows the cumulative rainfall for Malvern Wells in the UK for 2010. What, approximately, was the average monthly rainfall from the beginning of June to the end of September?
30 mm/month
40 mm/month
48 mm/month
57 mm/month
100 mm/month
Duncan's bath has a flat base and vertical sides. It can be filled completely from the hot tap in 15 minutes or from the cold tap in 10 minutes. Its capacity is 360 litres. When preparing a bath, Duncan's habit is to run both taps together for 1½ minutes, before turning off the cold tap. He turns the hot tap off when the bath is ¾ full, then leaves the water for a while to cool down to a suitable temperature before he climbs in.
Which graph would show how the depth of water increases as Duncan prepares his bath?
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B
C
D
E
