Multi-step word problems
Don’t stop after the first calculation.
← All countdown tipsA multi-step word problem hides two or three ordinary calculations inside one short story. Read only the first sentence and you will get a real, correct-looking number — it just is not the number the question asked for. The skill here is not harder maths. It is noticing how many jobs the story actually has, and doing all of them before you write an answer.
One-step question
“Tickets cost £6.50 each. How much for 4 tickets?”
4 × £6.50 = £26 — and that is the answer.
Multi-step question
“…and a family of 4 also buys a £9.80 programme. How much change from £40?”
£26 is only job one of three — the story is not finished yet.
Spot the extra job — clue words to watch for
When one of these words or phrases appears, it is almost always telling you that another calculation comes after the one you just did:
Picture it: four boxes, not one sum
Tickets cost £6.50 each. A family of 4 buys tickets and a £9.80 programme. How much change from £40?
Walk through it box by box — do not skip straight from the first number to an answer:
4 tickets
£26.00
+ programme
£35.80
Change from £40
£4.20
Stopping at £26 (just the tickets) or £35.80 (the total spent) is how most marks leak. The question asked for the change: £40 − £35.80 = £4.20.
Remember — the three-job method
Step 1
Read it all first
Underline the very last sentence — that is the real ask.
Step 2
Plan the jobs
Write “find A, then B, then the answer” before you calculate anything.
Step 3
Calculate, then check
Match your final unit to the question — £, sweets, minutes, people.
If your last line of working does not directly answer the underlined sentence, you are not finished — there is still one more job to do.
Exam trap
Distractors are the halfway answers: the first product, the total cost, or the change with a 10p slip. If your answer is sitting in the first line of working, keep going.
✗ Stop at 4 × £6.50 = £26
That is only the tickets — job one of three
✓ Tickets + programme, then change
The underlined last sentence decides the last sum
Question patterns you might see
Same habit every time: read the whole story, plan the jobs, then do the last one.
1 · Simple — Two-step money
“3 notebooks at £2.40 each and a pencil for 85p. Change from £10?”
Notebooks
£7.20
→Total
£8.05
→Change
£1.95
£10 − £8.05 = £1.95
2 · Simple — Leftover after groups
“86 sweets shared equally among 7 children. How many are left over?”
- 186 ÷ 7 = 12 remainder 2.
- 212 is how many sweets each child gets — that is not what was asked.
- 3The question asked for leftover, so the remainder itself is the answer.
2 left over
3 · Medium — Compare two totals
“Box A: 4 packs of 12. Box B: 5 packs of 10. How many more sweets in B?”
- 1A: 4 × 12 = 48
- 2B: 5 × 10 = 50
- 3B − A = 50 − 48 = 2
B has 2 more
4 · Medium — Hidden extra cost
“A taxi is £3.20 plus 80p per kilometre. A 9 km trip also has a £1.50 booking fee. What is the total fare?”
- 1Distance charge: 9 × £0.80 = £7.20
- 2Add the starting charge: £3.20 + £7.20 = £10.40
- 3Add the booking fee, which is easy to forget: £10.40 + £1.50 = £11.90
£11.90
5 · Medium — Two steps of time
“Adverts before a film last 15 minutes. The film starts at 14:35 and runs for 1 hour 50 minutes. What time does the film finish?”
- 1Adverts first: the film itself starts at 14:35 + 15 min = 14:50.
- 2Add the running time: 14:50 + 1 h 50 min.
- 350 min + 50 min = 1 h 40 min, so 14:50 + 1 h 50 min = 16:40.
Adverts
+15 min
→Film starts
14:50
→Finishes
16:40
The film finishes at 16:40
6 · Trickier — Percentage, then a flat amount off
“A jacket costs £60. It is reduced by 15% in a sale, then a loyalty card takes off a further flat £5. What does a loyalty cardholder pay?”
- 1Find the discount first: 15% of £60 = £9.
- 2Sale price: £60 − £9 = £51.
- 3The £5 loyalty discount comes after the sale price, not before: £51 − £5 = £46.
15% off
£9
→Sale price
£51
→Loyalty price
£46
£46
7 · Trickiest — Read the last sentence twice
“A shop has 240 apples. It sells 3/8 of them in the morning and 40 more in the afternoon. How many apples are left?”
- 1Morning sales: 3/8 of 240 = 90 apples sold.
- 2Add the afternoon sales: 90 + 40 = 130 apples sold in total.
- 3The question asked what is left, not how many were sold: 240 − 130 = 110.
Options will usually include 90, 130 and 150 too — every halfway answer on the way to the real one.
110 apples are left
Coach tip: put a tick on the underlined last sentence only once you have answered that exact question — not once you have done a calculation that merely looks finished.
Tomorrow (D-6): algebra — expand and simplify without dropping the hidden minus.
Next step
Practice locks the idea in. WhatsApp delivers tomorrow’s tip to your phone — same group as mock updates.