A worked solution to a problem similar to the Hannah’s sweets question that went viral in the 2015 Edexcel Maths Examination.
I have also included a couple alternative ways of doing it that I would refer to as ‘the easy way’ in a separate files (using the quadratic equation and solving by factorising).
Do you think this question was too difficult for the students?
Which way would you recommend to your students of solving this equation?
For a factorising lesson based on the Hannahs sweets problem please see
https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/factorising-quadratics-hannahs-sweets-megapack-11067558
For more on quadratics practice please check out our snakes and ladders game with over 500 questions. https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/gcse-maths-higher-quadratic-snakes-and-ladders-mega-pack-5-games-increasing-difficulty-over-500-qs-11055952
I have also included a couple alternative ways of doing it that I would refer to as ‘the easy way’ in a separate files (using the quadratic equation and solving by factorising).
Do you think this question was too difficult for the students?
Which way would you recommend to your students of solving this equation?
For a factorising lesson based on the Hannahs sweets problem please see
https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/factorising-quadratics-hannahs-sweets-megapack-11067558
For more on quadratics practice please check out our snakes and ladders game with over 500 questions. https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/gcse-maths-higher-quadratic-snakes-and-ladders-mega-pack-5-games-increasing-difficulty-over-500-qs-11055952
Something went wrong, please try again later.
I thank you for uploading this. I am a humanities teacher, not maths. However, this question and where it was placed inside the exam, is what made my son who was forecast and A, end up with a C because he lost confidence. Yes I can understand that all 'maths teachers' should know how to do this, but how many 'maths teachers' focus this type of question on the A* students.
It is quite a good resource, but..<br /> a. Any Maths teacher teaching at GCSE should be able to solve this for themselves.<br /> b. It has a couple of QWC errors: <br /> 1. "and" in place of "an"<br /> 2. (more serious) "If she took another orange sweet, the probability would be ..." assumes that she HAS taken another Orange sweet - from which we could go on to consider the probability of something ELSE happening, now that she HAS taken 2 Orange sweets. The solution SHOULD have said, "If she took another sweet, the probability that it would be orange would be...."<br /> We need to set a good example to our students of how to communicate.
Excellent resource. Many students failed to see it was a simple quadratic equation. Once identified this resource showed many easy ways to solve which made this accesible to most students. The snakes & ladders game was very good too. Keep up the great work & creating amazing resources
I would expect every maths teacher to know how to solve this.
This resource has been selected to feature in the TES Secondary Maths Newsletter. Thank you so much for sharing, you are helping to inspire teachers and students all over the world!
Report this resourceto let us know if it violates our terms and conditions.
Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.
£0.00