Non-Calculator Skills Part 1

Here are a sample of questions from National 5 exam papers that my current S3 class could face next year.

Now these questions are not that tricky and most would manage them easily with a calculator. However, these questions appear in the non-calculator section of the exam. This is where many pupils trip up. I am always amazed how after such a focus on non calculator skills in S1-3, once we start focussing on algebra, trigonometry, quadratics etc the pupils seem to forget all about written calculations.