Difficulty: Rating: GCSE Marks:

GCSE Text:
Harry is considering starting a model hobby where each week he will need to buy an issue of a magazine containing parts of a model bus.

The first issue of the magazine will cost £1.99, but the usual price of each issue is £8.99 and there are 130 issues needed in total.

a) What will be the total cost to buy all the issues needed to collect all the pieces to make the model?

b) If one issue is released each week, how many years will it take for Harry to collect all the pieces to make the model?

c) If the scale of the model is 1:12  and the actual length of the real bus is 11.2m, what will be the length of the completed model bus (to the nearest cm)?

Suggestions:
This is a good consolidation question once students are confident performing non-calculator decimal arithmetic.  Students will need to carefully read the question and also know the number of weeks in a year.   Students often take 3-4 minutes to answer this question in full, and mistakes are often made with the position of the decimal point and the calculation of years.

Teachers could extend the learning by considering:

• The website allows for parts to be purchased at a price of £5.99 without the magazine. If Harry takes advantage of the first reduced issue but then buys all remaining parts from the website without a magazine, how much money could he save on the total cost of the model?