5 general election maths questions
Here are 5 general election maths questions to give your children a taste of the big event - and a little maths practice.
Question 1
There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons. How many MPs does one party need to win the election?
Hint - to win the election you need to have more MPs than all the other parties put together. This is called a "having a majority".
Question 2
Let's say the Conservative party and Labour party have 273 MPs each. How many MPs are they short of winning?
Hint - you'll need to use the answer to question 1 to find this - see the answers below if you're stuck
Question 3
If the results turned out to be very close, let's say:
Party | MPs |
Conservatives | 273 |
Labour | 273 |
Liberal Democrats | 28 |
Scottish Nationalists | 52 |
Green | 1 |
Plaid Cymru | 4 |
UKIP | 2 |
SDLP | 3 |
DUP | 9 |
Sinn Fein | 5 |
TOTAL | 650 |
Who could the Conservative party join with to win the election?
Hint - of course it's not as simple as this some parties don't like each other and won't ever club together.
Question 4
Who could the Labour party join with to win the election?
Question 5
Out of the 650 MPs, 150 are women. What fraction are women?
And the Answers . . .
Question 1
There are 650 MPs
The winning party needs half of them and an extra one. That's 325 + 1 = 326
Question 2
If the Conservatives (or Labour ) have 273 they will need a further 326 - 273 MPs.
They will need 53 more MPs.
Question 3
If the Conservatives have 273 votes they will need to join with other parties to get the 53 MPs they need to win and form a Government
This could be:
Conservatives ( 273 ) + Scottish Nationalists ( 52) + Lib Dems ( 28) = 353 MPs
Question 4
Who could the Labour party join with in order to win a majority?
If Labour has 273 MPs they will need to join with other MPs to get the 53 MPs they need to win and form a Government.
This could be:
Labour (273) + Scottish Nationalists (52) + SDLP (3) = 328 MPs
Question 5
150 MP's are Women.
As a fraction this is:
Which is not enough!
Please note, our figures are completely made up for the purposes of practising maths!
I'm Jane, Co-founder of Komodo, and mum. If you have any questions please get in touch.
About Komodo - Komodo is a fun and effective way to boost primary maths skills. Designed for 4 to 11 year olds to use in the home, Komodo uses a little and often approach to learning maths (20 minutes, 3 to 5 times per week) that fits into the busy routine. Komodo users develop fluency and confidence in maths - without keeping them at the screen for long.
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