Maths quiz
Question 1
A set of real numbers: 4, x, 1, 9, 6 has the property
that the median of the set of numbers is equal to
the mean.
What values can x be?
Question 2
My digital watch uses ‘12 hour clock’ and shows
hours and minutes only.
For what fraction of a complete day is at least one
"1" showing on the display?
Question 3
How many rectangles (including squares) can be
drawn using the squares on a 4x4 chessboard?
Rotations and translations are permitted.
Question 4
This network has nine edges which meet at six
nodes.
The numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 are placed at the nodes,
with a different number at each node.
Question 4 (cont)
Is it possible to do this so that the sum of the two
numbers at the ends of an edge is different for
each edge?
Either show a way of doing this, or prove that it is
impossible.
This problem taken from http://nrich.maths.org/weekly
Question 5
A six digit positive integer has the property that
when its digits are rearranged, the new number is
double the original.
What is the smallest number this can be?
Question 6
2013 can be written as the sum of consecutive
positive integers, all of which have two digits.
What are the first and last two digit numbers in the
sum?
Question 7
Temperature can be measured in degrees
Fahrenheit or Celsius.
What temperature is represented by
the same number on both scales?
Question 8
2/3 of men answering this question got it right and
3/4 of women answering it got it right. The same
number of men and women were correct.
What fraction of all respondents were correct?
Question 9
16 is a special number because when it is written
as numbers with indices it can be written as either
24 or 42.
What is the next number that can be written as
both xy and yx?
=
(where x and y are both positive integers)
Question 10
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Question 11
London has longitude 0°.
Cardiff has longitude 3° W.
They have the same latitude.
If the sun rose at 4:40am this morning in London,
at what time did it rise in Cardiff?
Question 12
In the game fizz-buzz, the positive integers are
called out in order starting from 1 but replacing
any number which is a multiple of 3 with ‘fizz’ and
replacing any number which is a multiple of 5 with
‘buzz’.
So the game begins:
1, 2, fizz, 4, buzz, fizz, 7, 8, fizz, buzz, 11, fizz, 13,
14, fizzbuzz, 16, 17…
What is the 2013th number to be said aloud?
Question 13
Joining adjacent midpoints of the edges of a
regular tetrahedron creates a regular octahedron.
What is the ratio of the volume of the octahedron
to the volume of the original tetrahedron?
Question 14
A regular octagon has side length 2.
What is its area?
(Leave answer in surd form)
Question 15
2013! ends in a string of zeros. How many of them
are there?
Teacher notes
• These questions formed the QR maths quiz at the MEI conference
2013.
• They are in approximate order of difficulty … although difficulty is in
the mind of the solver!
• You might want to use a selection of these questions as a quiz for
your own students. Most questions are accessible to KS4 students
and younger.
• Question 9 has an alternative ‘visual’ version, please see the
attached Excel sheet.
• Answers on the next page
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
0, 5, 10
½
100
Impossible. Sum of edges
has to be 63 (sum of 3 to 11)
whereas each node is even,
hence each of the 1-6 digits
will be used 2 or 4 times
each. This will give an even
total.
5. 142 857 and 285714
6. 45 and 77
7. -40
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
12/17
No other positive
integer solutions exist
13
4:52am
3773
½
8+8√2
501