11+ Maths
Calculating with pounds and pence — change, totals, best buys and multi-step money word problems.
Money appears in 177 of our 571 ready papers (437 tagged questions). It averages 2.5 questions a paper worth about 1.72 marks each. The typical question allows around 1.1 min. It appears in 2 CSSE papers we hold.
Money questions look friendly and still catch children out. Converting between pounds and pence, giving change, comparing offers, and multi-step shopping problems all appear across the corpus. Errors usually come from mixing units mid-calculation or from rounding money incorrectly. Because money is applied decimals, weak decimal place value shows up here first. Practise writing every amount with two decimal places — or entirely in pence — and sticking to one unit until the final answer. Best-buy and “how many can I afford” questions need a clear plan before the arithmetic starts. Independent papers often wrap money inside word problems with unused information, so underline what is asked. A final sense-check (“does £3.05 change from a £5 note for a £1.95 item feel right?”) catches many slips before they cost the mark.
A real tagged question from our catalogue — method included, not paywalled.
Ranked from our tagged catalogue — open a paper to practise the questions that actually test this topic.
Not sure whether money is the problem? Mark any past paper on 11plusSolved and the report tells you which topics are costing marks — and how many.
