Difficulty: Rating: GCSE Marks:

GCSE Text:
There are 3600 people visiting a zoo today. One eighth of visitors are students, one third of visitors are children and the rest are adults. Here are the ticket prices:

How much money has the zoo taken in ticket sales today?

Suggestions:
This is a typical GCSE arithmetic problem where students are required to identify steps themselves. Students will probably differ in the way they apply fractions – some will divide the number by the denominator, others will put the number of visitors ‘over one’ and multiply it by the fraction using fraction arithmetic. Either way works, and healthy discussion often follows. It is worth reminding students that even if a mistake is make in calculating the final total, clear workings will result in marks being awarded for:

• Correct use of fraction multiplication to calculation of people in the park
• Correct multiplication by the appropriate price

Extension Ideas:
Teachers could extend the learning by considering:

• It is estimated that one third of adults choose to ‘Gift Aid’ their admission price, meaning that the government gives the zoo a quarter of the value of those adult’s tickets. How much will the government give the zoo as Gift Aid as a result of today’s admission?