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Here are some specific activities, investigations or visual aids we have picked out. Click anywhere in the grey area to access the resource. The options may go beyong the scope of this level of the Functional Skills requirements.

• Interest Practise using the formulas for simple interest and compound interest.
• Interest Video Learn about simple interest, compound interest, appreciation and depreciation. This video is to help you do the online, self-marking exercise.
• 4.3 Billion Dollars Short Futurama clip: Fry's reaction to becoming a billionaire!
• Compound Interest Calculator A customised online calculator for quickly finding the solutions to compound interest problems.
• Iteration Find approximate solutions to equations numerically using iteration.

Here are some exam-style questions on this statement:

• "Elaine invests £150 000 in a savings account for six years." ... more
• "Winky Lash wants to invest £20 000 for 3 years in a bank. She has the following two choices of banks, both offering compound interest but on different terms:" ... more
• "The value of a boat is £220 000." ... more
• "Davy Browning buys a premium skateboard." ... more
• "(a) Davy Browning earns £54000 per year before paying tax.
  He pays tax on his earnings at a rate of 18%.
  Calculate the amount Davy has after paying tax." ... more
• "The value of a new car is £22 000." ... more
• "Using \(x_{n+1}=-5-\frac{6}{x_n^2} \)" ... more
• "Michael Banks invests £2000 in a savings account for two years. The account pays 2% compound interest per annum." ... more
• "The value of a new house, \(V\), is given by:" ... more
• "Here are the details for two bank accounts." ... more
• "Montague invests £7000 for six years in a bank offering compound interest at \(x%\) per annum." ... more
• "Consider the following cubic equation:

  $$x^3-7x-5=0$$

  An approximate solution can be found by using the following iterative process." ... more

• "Ramin buys a car for £25,000. The value of the car decreases by 20% in the first year." ... more
• "Ruby invests a certain amount of money in a bank account that pays a nominal annual interest rate of 6.7%, compounded quarterly." ... more

See all these questions

Click on a topic below for suggested lesson Starters, resources and activities from Transum.

• Money For many pupils the ability to understand financial transactions is a skill they thank their mathematics teacher for. Understanding the use of money is a real, practical application of mathematics in the real world and is just as important today as ever it was. When it comes to managing our money and avoiding costly mistakes it is well worthwhile to strive to become an expert. There are key aspects of personal finance the pupils should understand as the get older and more independent in their lives and the activities provided here provide resources for a small part of their learning process.
• Sequences A pattern of numbers following a rule is called a sequence. There are many different types of sequence and this topic introduces pupils to some of them. The most basic sequences of numbers is formed by adding a constant to a term to get the next term of the sequence. This rule can be expressed as a linear equation and the terms of the sequence when plotted as a series of coordinates forms a straight line. More complex sequences are investigated where the rule is not a linear function. Other well-known sequences includes the Fibonacci sequence where the rule for obtaining the next term depends on the previous two terms. Sequences can be derived from shapes and patterns. A growing patterns of squares or triangles formed from toothpicks is often used to show linear sequences in a very practical way. Diagrams representing sequences provides interesting display material for the classroom. Typically pupils are challenged to find the next term of a given sequence but a deeper understanding is needed to find intermediate terms, 100th term or the nth term of a sequence.