Numeracy Tests For Dummies E-Book

Colin Beveridge

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 377

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The easy way to get practice and excel at numeracy tests Whether you're looking for a new job, applying to certain university courses, or attempting to join the military, you're increasingly likely to face a numeracy test as part of the screening process. And the only way to prepare for a numeracy test is practise. Numeracy Tests For Dummies is an accessible one-stop guide to pass these test. Featuring expert advice, instruction, review, and plenty of practise, Numeracy Tests For Dummies will help you succeed. Numeracy Tests For Dummies contains instruction and revision on: * Basic mathematical knowledge and skills * Data interpretation * Quantitative reasoning * Numerical sequencing

Leseprobe

Numeracy Tests Numeracy Tests For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/numeracytestsuk to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How this Book is Organised

Part I: Preparing for Your Numeracy Test

Part II: A Whistle-Stop Tour of the Maths You Need

Part III: Practice Tests

Part IV: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Preparing for Your Numeracy Test

Chapter 1: Getting Started

Covering the Basics

Defining numeracy

What numeracy tests typically cover

Opening Up Your Options with Numeracy Tests

Improving your chances

Examining Common Numeracy Tests

Acing ALAN

Training to be a teacher

Fighting your way into the armed forces

Helping out with the emergency services

UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT)

And the rest . . .

Reviewing Common Test Types

Mental arithmetic

Real-world maths

Handling data

Taking the Test

Knowing what to expect

Calming yourself down

Chapter 2: Putting a Practice Plan Together

Working Out What to Learn

Finding out what’s in your test

Working out what you already know

Filling in the gaps

Finding Time to Study

Making a habit of it

Finding a space for yourself

Catching Up if You Fall Behind

Being realistic

Meeting yourself where you are

Doing what you can

Revising What You Know

Boosting your confidence with the easy bits

Stretching a little further each time

Working on practice tests

Picking up the Pace

Tackling timing

Flashing cards

Speeding up a little at a time

Keeping on target

Chapter 3: Tackling Test Day

Preparing for Exam Day

Knowing where the exam is

Bringing what you need

Getting in the right frame of mind

Connecting with a Computer Test

What to expect

Magic numbers: Using the on-screen calculator

Previewing a Paper-and-Pencil Test

Answering the exam questions

Making sense of multiple choice

Approaching Tricky Questions

Explaining the problem to the bear

Considering what you’d do with the information

Keeping it tidy

Managing Your Time

Starting off gently

Moving swiftly along

Guessing when you need to

Checking your work

Part II: A Whistle-Stop Tour of the Maths You Need

Chapter 4: Refreshing Your Basic Maths

Handling Whole Numbers

Adding and subtracting

Multiplying and dividing

Roughly Speaking: Finding Approximate Answers

Rounding off with decimal places

Working roughly

Dealing with Fractions

Equivalent fractions and cancelling down

Adding and taking away fractions

Fractions of a number

Multiplying and dividing fractions

Converting between decimals and fractions

Dealing with Decimals

Adding and taking away decimals

Multiplying and dividing decimal numbers

Chapter 5: Blitzing Beyond the Basics

Perfecting Percentages and Parts of the Whole

Doing basic percentages with the Table of Joy

Percentage increase and decrease

Rattling Off Ratios

Normal ratio sums

Total ratio sums

Three-part ratios

Simplifying ratios

The Number Knowledge You Need

Bracing yourself for BIDMAS

Finding the magic formula

Number sequences

Sorting Out Statistics

Mean, median and mode

Chapter 6: Mastering Mental Arithmetic

Breaking Down the Big Four

Adding and subtracting

Multiplying and dividing

Taking stock of tens

Finding factors

Putting Percentages in their Place

Converting percentages into other forms

Finding a percentage

Percentage increase and decrease

Making Sense of Money and Time

Counting your cash

Converting your currency

Time for the 24-hour clock

How long things last

Finding start and end times

Chapter 7: Reaching Into Real-World Maths

Measuring Up with the Metric System

Weighing things up

The long and short of it

Converting between units

Showing Shapes Who’s Boss

Finding your angle

The shapes you need to know

All about area

A walk around the perimeter

How much things hold

Working with speed, distance and time

Chapter 8: Interpreting Data

Getting on Top of Graphs

Which graph to use

Battling with bar charts

Making pie charts a piece of cake

Living with line graphs

Scatter graphs

Beating box plots

Conquering cumulative frequency

Drilling into Data Tables

Tackling two-way tables

Tallying up

Dealing with data tables

Taming table sums

Moving Swiftly Along: Working with Time-Based Questions

Reading timetables

Part III: Practice Tests

Chapter 9: Mental Arithmetic Tests

Test A: Armed Forces and Emergency Services

Test A Questions

Worked Answers for Test A

Test B: ALAN

Test B Questions

Worked Answers for Test B

Test C: Qualified Teacher Status

Test C Questions

Worked Answers for Test C

Test D: General Mental Arithmetic

Test D Questions

Worked Answers for Test D

Answers at a Glance

Test A

Test B

Test C

Test D

Chapter 10: Testing Real-World Maths

Test A: British Army Technical Skills Test

Test A Questions

Worked Answers for Test A

Test B: Qualified Teacher Status Numeracy Test

Test B Questions

Worked Answers for Test B

Test C: ALAN Numeracy Exam

Test C Questions

Worked Answers for Test C

Test D: General

Test D Questions

Worked Answers for Test D

Answers at a Glance

Test A

Test B

Test C

Test D

Chapter 11: Data Handling Tests

Test A: Armed Forces Entrance Exam

Test A Questions

Worked Answers for Test A

Test B: Emergency Services Data Handling

Test B Questions

Worked Answers for Test B

Test C: ALAN Level 2 Data Handling

Questions for Test C

Worked Answers for Test C

Test D: General Data Handling

Test D Questions

Worked Answers for Test D

Answers at a Glance

Test A

Test B

Test C

Test D

Chapter 12: Advanced Data Handling Tests

Test A: Qualified Teacher Status Exam

Test A Questions

Worked Answers for Test A

Test B: UKCAT

Test B Questions

Worked Answers for Test B

Answers at a Glance

Test A

Test B

Chapter 13: Mixed Tests

Test A: ALAN Level 2 Qualification

Test A Questions

Worked Answers for Test A

Test B: The Army Technical Test

Test B Questions

Worked Answers for Test B

Test C: General Numeracy

Test C Questions

Worked answers for Test C

Answers at a Glance

Test A

Test B

Test C

Part IV: The Part of Tens

Chapter 14: Ten Ways to Find a Sense of Calm While Studying

Talk Yourself Up

Sit Up Straight

Breathe Like a Singer

Put Out the Welcome Mat

Make Mistakes Merrily

Work Within Limits

Make Studying a Habit

Stay Well-Fuelled

Jump Around

Warm Up Gently

Chapter 15: Ten Ways To Motivate Yourself To Study

Remember Why You’re Studying

Make Your Workspace Wonderful

Cross Off the Days

Treat Yourself

Find a Study Buddy

Get Your Friends and Family Onside

Set a Timer

Remember it’s not Forever

Give Yourself a Good Name

Think of the Outcome

Chapter 16: Ten Tips For Tackling Tough Test Questions

Read the Question

Eliminate Wrong Answers

Think of Similar Problems

Try the Answers

Explain the Question to Yourself

Use a Smart Estimate

Come Back to it Later

Break it Down into Smaller Parts

Guess Wildly

Chapter 17: Ten Ways To Make Your Exam Easier

Knowing Your Enemy

Practising the Hard Parts

Practising the Easy Parts

Keeping Your Energy Up

Accentuating the Positive

Using the Last Few Minutes

Having a Ritual

Read the Paper First

Managing Your Time

Checking Your Work and Putting it Right

Cheat Sheet

Numeracy Tests Numeracy Tests For Dummies®

by Colin Beveridge

Numeracy Tests For Dummies®

Published by John Wiley & Sons, LtdThe Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ England

Email (for orders and customer service enquires): [email protected]

Visit our home page on www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to [email protected], or faxed to (44) 1243 770620.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher, the author, AND ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN PREPARING THIS WORK make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit us at www.wiley.com.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-119-95318-0 (paperback), 978-1-119-95402-6 (ebook), 978-1-119-95403-3 (ebook), 978-1-119-95404-0 (ebook)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Colin Beveridge is a maths confidence coach for Flying Colours Maths, author of Basic Maths For Dummies and co-author of the Little Algebra Book.

He holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of St Andrews and worked for several years on NASA’s Living With A Star project at Montana State University, where he came up with an equation which is named after him. It’s used to help save the world from being destroyed by solar flares. So far so good.

He became tired of the glamour of academia and returned to the UK to concentrate on helping students come to terms with maths and show that not all mathematicians are boring nerds; some are exciting, relatively well-adjusted nerds.

Colin lives in Poole, Dorset with an espresso pot, several guitars and nothing to prove. Feel free to visit his website at www.flyingcoloursmaths.co.uk or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/icecolbeveridge.

Dedication

For my students and teachers, past and present.

Author’s Acknowledgements

I’m very grateful to the team at Dummies Towers for their help and guidance, especially my editors Rachael Chilvers and Mike Baker.

The Little Red Roaster coffee shop in Parkstone provided the enormous quantities of excellent coffee needed to turn half-baked ideas into a fully-formed book; without Martin Stellar’s hospitality and flakey internet connection, it would have taken twice as long to write. I’m thankful to the students who helped me to shape this book, especially Julie Carter, Phil Jewell and Rebecca Murray.

And as always, I thank my parents – Linda Hendren and Ken Beveridge – for their endless support and encouragement. 

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Commissioning, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Rachael Chilvers

Commissioning Editor: Mike Baker

Assistant Editor: Ben Kemble

Technical Editors: Sam Harrison and Giles Webberley

Proofreader: James Harrison

Production Manager: Daniel Mersey

Publisher: David Palmer

Cover Photo: © iStock / CTR design LLC

Cartoons: Ed McLachlan

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees

Layout and Graphics: Sennett Vaughan Johnson, Lavonne Roberts, Erin Zeltner

Proofreader: Lindsay Amones

Indexer: BIM Indexing & Proofreading Services

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher

Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director

Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

Hi, I’m Colin, and I want maths to be easy for you.

I don’t want to turn you into a geek like me – I couldn’t if I tried. I don’t want to cram maths down your throat, either – that would be pretty rude.

All I want to do is help you learn enough maths to do well in your numeracy test and to feel confident tackling the kinds of maths problems that will come up in your future career and/or studies.

As you work through this book, answering the questions will get quicker and easier with time and practice, and you’ll be in great shape for your numeracy test. Once you have that, you may never have to do another maths test again! Here’s hoping!

I’d love to hear how you get on. The best way to catch me is on Twitter (I’m http://twitter.com/icecolbeveridge) – I’ll read your news and get back to you if I can!