📖Definition
Mixed Topic questions can combine a variety of topics. You just need to be able to adapt your knowledge to suit the question being asked.
💡Tips/hints
Often Mixed Topic questions are quite complicated so break the question down into steps. Solve one step at a time.
✏️Example
In a test, Nita got 7, Niall got 13 and Naomi got twice as many marks as Nasser. If the mean mark of the 4 pupils was 11, what mark did Naomi get?
✅Solution
This combines your knowledge of data handling and algebra.
The Mean is worked out by adding together all the marks and dividing by the number of pupils.
But, we don't know all the marks. This is where we need to use some algebra.
We know that Naomi got twice as many as Nasser.
Let Nasser's score be x
Naomi's score is therefore 2x
The mean is (7 + 13 + x + 2x) ÷ 4
This simplifies to (20 + 3x) ÷ 4
We're told the mean is 11.
So, (20 + 3x) ÷ 4 = 11
Multiply both sides by 4 to get 20 + 3x = 44
Now subtract 20 from both sides to get 3x = 24 so x = 8
We're not quite finished though.
Nasser's mark was x - we're asked for Naomi's which was 2x
So Naomi's mark was 2 x 8 = 16