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Matching Fractions Decimals Percentages

Stage:2 and 3 Challenge Level:

How to Play

Pelmathism is like Pelmanism. The computer starts with 16 cards, face down.

The cards come in pairs and you start with 100 points. You click on two cards to flip them over, if they match you win 50 points, if not you lose 5 points for each card. Try again. Remember where the different numbers are so that you can match each card with its partner. The game finishes when you have matched all the pairs.

Be a Winner

You are playing this game on the computer but not against the computer. Chance comes into it, but it is a game of skill and concentration and knowing your numbers. What is the maximum score for 16 cards? How close can you get to it? We think you are doing extremely well to get a score of 400 but it is possible, with luck on your side, to do even better than that.

The Maths is in the Matching.

Where does the maths come in? The numbers on these cards are represented by fractions or by decimals or by percentages and you have to match two representations of the same number. This is the PFDP Game (there will be others in future months).

How do you match cards? Well we know, for example, that the number one third is the number you get when you divide one by three. One third can be represented in all the following different ways:

P	by a picture
F	as a fraction $$\frac{1}{3} \mbox{ or as an equivalent fraction e.g. } \frac{3}{9} \mbox{ or } \frac{5}{15}$$
D	as a decimal $$0.3333... = 0.3 \mbox{ recurring } = 0.\bar{3}$$
P	as a percentage $$33 \frac{1}{3} \%$$