Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
The diagonals of a trapezium divide it into four parts. Can you create a trapezium where three of those parts are equal in area?
If I print this page which shape will require the more yellow ink?
Investigate the properties of quadrilaterals which can be drawn with a circle just touching each side and another circle just touching each vertex.
Can you find a general rule for finding the areas of equilateral triangles drawn on an isometric grid?
Straight lines are drawn from each corner of a square to the mid points of the opposite sides. Express the area of the octagon that is formed at the centre as a fraction of the area of the square.
Prove that the area of a quadrilateral is given by half the product of the lengths of the diagonals multiplied by the sine of the angle between the diagonals.
Triangle ABC is right angled at A and semi circles are drawn on all three sides producing two 'crescents'. Show that the sum of the areas of the two crescents equals the area of triangle ABC.
A trapezium is divided into four triangles by its diagonals. Suppose the two triangles containing the parallel sides have areas a and b, what is the area of the trapezium?
A point P is selected anywhere inside an equilateral triangle. What can you say about the sum of the perpendicular distances from P to the sides of the triangle? Can you prove your conjecture?
If the base of a rectangle is increased by 10% and the area is unchanged, by what percentage (exactly) is the width decreased by ?
Points P, Q, R and S each divide the sides AB, BC, CD and DA respectively in the ratio of 2 : 1. Join the points. What is the area of the parallelogram PQRS in relation to the original rectangle?
A circle is inscribed in a triangle which has side lengths of 8, 15 and 17 cm. What is the radius of the circle?
Can you choose your units so that a cube has the same numerical value for it volume, surface area and total edge length?
Draw two circles, each of radius 1 unit, so that each circle goes through the centre of the other one. What is the area of the overlap?
Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?
Manufacturers need to minimise the amount of material used to make their product. What is the best cross-section for a gutter?
Four quadrants are drawn centred at the vertices of a square . Find the area of the central region bounded by the four arcs.
A farmer has a field which is the shape of a trapezium as illustrated below. To increase his profits he wishes to grow two different crops. To do this he would like to divide the field into two. . . .
A red square and a blue square overlap so that the corner of the red square rests on the centre of the blue square. Show that, whatever the orientation of the red square, it covers a quarter of the. . . .
It's easy to work out the areas of most squares that we meet, but what if they were tilted?
Can you show that you can share a square pizza equally between two people by cutting it four times using vertical, horizontal and diagonal cuts through any point inside the square?
If you have only 40 metres of fencing available, what is the maximum area of land you can fence off?
Three rods of different lengths form three sides of an enclosure with right angles between them. What arrangement maximises the area
What is the same and what is different about these circle questions? What connections can you make?
Draw some isosceles triangles with an area of $9$cm$^2$ and a vertex at (20,20). If all the vertices must have whole number coordinates, how many is it possible to draw?
Do you know how to find the area of a triangle? You can count the squares. What happens if we turn the triangle on end? Press the button and see. Try counting the number of units in the triangle now. . . .
Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?
Can you find the area of a parallelogram defined by two vectors?
A square of area 40 square cms is inscribed in a semicircle. Find the area of the square that could be inscribed in a circle of the same radius.
Take any rectangle ABCD such that AB > BC. The point P is on AB and Q is on CD. Show that there is exactly one position of P and Q such that APCQ is a rhombus.
Prove that a triangle with sides of length 5, 5 and 6 has the same area as a triangle with sides of length 5, 5 and 8. Find other pairs of non-congruent isosceles triangles which have equal areas.
It is possible to dissect any square into smaller squares. What is the minimum number of squares a 13 by 13 square can be dissected into?
ABC and DEF are equilateral triangles of side 3 and 4 respectively. Construct an equilateral triangle whose area is the sum of the area of ABC and DEF.
This rectangle is cut into five pieces which fit exactly into a triangular outline and also into a square outline where the triangle, the rectangle and the square have equal areas.
What is the ratio of the area of a square inscribed in a semicircle to the area of the square inscribed in the entire circle?
What happens to the area and volume of 2D and 3D shapes when you enlarge them?
Seven small rectangular pictures have one inch wide frames. The frames are removed and the pictures are fitted together like a jigsaw to make a rectangle of length 12 inches. Find the dimensions of. . . .
What are the areas of these triangles? What do you notice? Can you generalise to other "families" of triangles?
You can move the 4 pieces of the jigsaw and fit them into both outlines. Explain what has happened to the missing one unit of area.
In this problem we are faced with an apparently easy area problem, but it has gone horribly wrong! What happened?
Which has the greatest area, a circle or a square inscribed in an isosceles, right angle triangle?
Is it possible to remove ten unit cubes from a 3 by 3 by 3 cube made from 27 unit cubes so that the surface area of the remaining solid is the same as the surface area of the original 3 by 3 by 3. . . .
Analyse these beautiful biological images and attempt to rank them in size order.
Three squares are drawn on the sides of a triangle ABC. Their areas are respectively 18 000, 20 000 and 26 000 square centimetres. If the outer vertices of the squares are joined, three more. . . .
Can you rank these sets of quantities in order, from smallest to largest? Can you provide convincing evidence for your rankings?
The area of a square inscribed in a circle with a unit radius is, satisfyingly, 2. What is the area of a regular hexagon inscribed in a circle with a unit radius?
Bluey-green, white and transparent squares with a few odd bits of shapes around the perimeter. But, how many squares are there of each type in the complete circle? Study the picture and make. . . .
I'm thinking of a rectangle with an area of 24. What could its perimeter be?
Follow the instructions and you can take a rectangle, cut it into 4 pieces, discard two small triangles, put together the remaining two pieces and end up with a rectangle the same size. Try it!
A follow-up activity to Tiles in the Garden.