The 2024 maths SAT papers were very similar to previous years but they did include some surprises. One of these was a tricky question involving money. Four items were shown but only three of them had a price. Change received from purchasing all four items was also given and the cost of the fourth item had to be worked out.

There are several ways that this can be done. One way is carry out several calculations in order.

1. Add the cost of the three items.
2. Subtract the change from the £10 note given.
3. Subtract answer 1 from answer 2.

It wasn’t until I had written some similar questions myself that I realised there was a way to do this with just two calculations, as follows.

1. Add the cost of the three items and the amount of change.
2. Subtract this total from £10.

Some children could easily do this ‘in their heads’, but if a mistake is made and no method shown, then no marks will be awarded. If the answer is incorrect but the method shown is correct then one mark is awarded.

This is just one set of pages taken from a huge number of practice pages to help boost SAT results at the end of KS2.

Because these are money questions they are classified in the Measurement category of the National Curriculum.