Transum Software

Best Buys

Calculate the unit cost of items to help determine which of two similar products is the best buy.

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Description Help More...

Calculate which of the two items is the best value then drag that item into the shopping trolley.

One Day Sale!

One Day Sale!

Shopping Trolley

This is where feedback will appear.

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This is Best Buys level 4. You can also try:
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 5

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Comment recorded on the 14 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Trish Bailey, Kingstone School:

"This is a great memory aid which could be used for formulae or key facts etc - in any subject area. The PICTURE is such an aid to remembering where each number or group of numbers is - my pupils love it!
Thanks"

Comment recorded on the 10 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Carol, Sheffield PArk Academy:

"3 NQTs in the department, I'm new subject leader in this new academy - Starters R Great!! Lovely resource for stimulating learning and getting eveyone off to a good start. Thank you!!"

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Learning and understanding Mathematics, at every level, requires learner engagement. Mathematics is not a spectator sport. Sometimes traditional teaching fails to actively involve students. One way to address the problem is through the use of interactive activities and this web site provides many of those. The Go Maths main page links to more activities designed for students in upper Secondary/High school.

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© Transum Mathematics :: This activity can be found online at:
www.Transum.org/go/?Num=768

Description of Levels

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Level 1 - Where the unit cost can be found by multiplying or dividing by a whole number

Level 2 - Where the unit cost can be found by multiplying or dividing by a fraction

Level 3 - Calculating the price difference per unit of given products

Level 4 - A Best Buy drag-and-drop activity

Level 5 - A harder Best Buy drag-and-drop activity

More on this topic including lesson Starters, visual aids, investigations and self-marking exercises.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

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Example

Example

Imagine you were in a supermarket looking for washing powder when you see two similar boxes: brand A and Brand B.

The boxes are different sizes and different prices so you calculate the cost of 1 gram of each type of powder to find the best buy.

Brand A: 267 ÷ 1200 = 0.2225 pence per gram.

Brand B: 291 ÷ 1300 = 0.2238 pence per gram.

Brand A is the cheapest (per gram) so that is the best buy.


Note that people don't always buy the product that works out to be the cheapest. There may be other considerations such as the amount of the product they actually need. This exercise however is about using unit pricing to find the best value product.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

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