Reading the Question Carefully

Look at ten counters. Six are red. If the question asks how many are red, the answer is six. If it asks how many are not red, the answer is four. The picture did not change at all — the word not changed the answer. So when you see a word like not, put your finger on it before you start counting.

A box has six red marbles, ten blue and four yellow. Impossible means it can never happen — there are no white marbles, so taking a white one is impossible. Certain means it must happen. Here is the trap: blue has the most marbles, so blue feels like the right answer to any question about this box. But if the question asks what is impossible, you want the colour that is not in the box at all.

Some questions give you three rules at once: in the square, and in the triangle, but not in the circle. Take the letters one at a time and use all three rules on each. A is in the square but not the triangle, so it fails. C and F are inside the circle, so they fail. G is outside everything. Only B passes all three. Saying the rules out loud as you check stops you forgetting one.

Three words tell you what to do. Altogether means add everything up: five oranges cut into quarters make twenty quarters. Left means take some away: eight shells with five kept means three were given away. Least means the smallest number that is still enough — twenty-seven children needing biscuits in packets of ten need three packets, because two packets is only twenty and that is not enough. When you are packing things into boxes or packets, you nearly always round up.

Here is the last habit, and it is the most useful one. Work the answer out, then read the question one more time. Emma had eight shells and kept five — how many did she give away? It is easy to do the subtraction, get three, and then write five, because five is the number you were just thinking about. Reading the question again catches that every time. Read it, underline the word, work it out, read it again. Quiz and exercises now.