Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
Find the frequency distribution for ordinary English, and use it to help you crack the code.
Substitution and Transposition all in one! How fiendish can these codes get?
Can you work out what size grid you need to read our secret message?
A game for two people, or play online. Given a target number, say 23, and a range of numbers to choose from, say 1-4, players take it in turns to add to the running total to hit their target.
Here is a machine with four coloured lights. Can you develop a strategy to work out the rules controlling each light?
A collection of resources to support work on Factors and Multiples at Secondary level.
Given the products of diagonally opposite cells - can you complete this Sudoku?
You are given the Lowest Common Multiples of sets of digits. Find the digits and then solve the Sudoku.
Have you seen this way of doing multiplication ?
A game that tests your understanding of remainders.
Here is a Sudoku with a difference! Use information about lowest common multiples to help you solve it.
List any 3 numbers. It is always possible to find a subset of adjacent numbers that add up to a multiple of 3. Can you explain why and prove it?
The clues for this Sudoku are the product of the numbers in adjacent squares.
When the number x 1 x x x is multiplied by 417 this gives the answer 9 x x x 0 5 7. Find the missing digits, each of which is represented by an "x" .
A three digit number abc is always divisible by 7 when 2a+3b+c is divisible by 7. Why?
For this challenge, you'll need to play Got It! Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?
Find a cuboid (with edges of integer values) that has a surface area of exactly 100 square units. Is there more than one? Can you find them all?
Can you find a relationship between the number of dots on the circle and the number of steps that will ensure that all points are hit?
Find some examples of pairs of numbers such that their sum is a factor of their product. eg. 4 + 12 = 16 and 4 × 12 = 48 and 16 is a factor of 48.
The puzzle can be solved by finding the values of the unknown digits (all indicated by asterisks) in the squares of the $9\times9$ grid.
Imagine we have four bags containing a large number of 1s, 4s, 7s and 10s. What numbers can we make?
Choose any 3 digits and make a 6 digit number by repeating the 3 digits in the same order (e.g. 594594). Explain why whatever digits you choose the number will always be divisible by 7, 11 and 13.
A game in which players take it in turns to choose a number. Can you block your opponent?
Factorial one hundred (written 100!) has 24 noughts when written in full and that 1000! has 249 noughts? Convince yourself that the above is true. Perhaps your methodology will help you find the. . . .
How many integers between 1 and 1200 are NOT multiples of any of the numbers 2, 3 or 5?
Can you find any perfect numbers? Read this article to find out more...
Each letter represents a different positive digit AHHAAH / JOKE = HA What are the values of each of the letters?
The number 12 = 2^2 × 3 has 6 factors. What is the smallest natural number with exactly 36 factors?
Find some triples of whole numbers a, b and c such that a^2 + b^2 + c^2 is a multiple of 4. Is it necessarily the case that a, b and c must all be even? If so, can you explain why?
Three people chose this as a favourite problem. It is the sort of problem that needs thinking time - but once the connection is made it gives access to many similar ideas.
Rectangles are considered different if they vary in size or have different locations. How many different rectangles can be drawn on a chessboard?
The sum of the first 'n' natural numbers is a 3 digit number in which all the digits are the same. How many numbers have been summed?
Play the divisibility game to create numbers in which the first two digits make a number divisible by 2, the first three digits make a number divisible by 3...
Find the highest power of 11 that will divide into 1000! exactly.
The number 8888...88M9999...99 is divisible by 7 and it starts with the digit 8 repeated 50 times and ends with the digit 9 repeated 50 times. What is the value of the digit M?
Ben passed a third of his counters to Jack, Jack passed a quarter of his counters to Emma and Emma passed a fifth of her counters to Ben. After this they all had the same number of counters.
The nth term of a sequence is given by the formula n^3 + 11n . Find the first four terms of the sequence given by this formula and the first term of the sequence which is bigger than one million. . . .
What is the smallest number of answers you need to reveal in order to work out the missing headers?
Which pairs of cogs let the coloured tooth touch every tooth on the other cog? Which pairs do not let this happen? Why?
Can you find a way to identify times tables after they have been shifted up?
In this activity, the computer chooses a times table and shifts it. Can you work out the table and the shift each time?
Given the products of adjacent cells, can you complete this Sudoku?
Data is sent in chunks of two different sizes - a yellow chunk has 5 characters and a blue chunk has 9 characters. A data slot of size 31 cannot be exactly filled with a combination of yellow and. . . .
Find the largest integer which divides every member of the following sequence: 1^5-1, 2^5-2, 3^5-3, ... n^5-n.
Twice a week I go swimming and swim the same number of lengths of the pool each time. As I swim, I count the lengths I've done so far, and make it into a fraction of the whole number of lengths. . . .
Find the smallest positive integer N such that N/2 is a perfect cube, N/3 is a perfect fifth power and N/5 is a perfect seventh power.
Follow this recipe for sieving numbers and see what interesting patterns emerge.
Make a line of green and a line of yellow rods so that the lines differ in length by one (a white rod)
Imagine we have four bags containing numbers from a sequence. What numbers can we make now?
How many zeros are there at the end of the number which is the product of first hundred positive integers?