Year 3 –probing questions
These questions can be used to check understanding and/or support the assessment of progress towards the end of year
expectations. In term 6 they can be supplemented with the ncetm Exemplification questions.
NUMBER
- Use these cards to make 364. What does the 3 represent? Remove the 4. Now what number have you got?
Number and place value
What does the 3 represent now?
- Count back in tens from 196. Will 54 be one of the numbers you say? Why not?
- Partition 364 in as many ways as you can
- Which number partitions to 200+50+13?
- Find the next two missing numbers:
- 182,192,195… How do you know?
- How many different ways can you complete this sequence
- _ 76 _ _ _ 68. Describe your sequences.
- Draw an empty number line and mark 456, 465 and 472 on it.
- Put these numbers in order. Which would be the third number?
- How many three digit numbers is it possible to write if they all have 6 in the tens column?
- I chose a three digit number. My number is a multiple of 5. Double my number is a multiple of 50. What
could my number be? Explain why.
- Ann says 38 x 10 is 308. Explain how you know she is wrong.
- How many £10 notes are needed to make £70
- How many 10 p pieces are needed to make £2.30
- Pat walks 0.8 Km. How many metres is this?
- Find all the three digit numbers using the digits 1,2 and 3. Read those numbers. Order them. What clues
did you look for? Tell me a number between these two.
- Use digits 4, 5 and 0. Make a number that is a multiple of 2, now a multiple of 5 and now a multiple of 10.
- Two numbers multiply to make 120. What could they be?
- Write numbers in the boxes to make this correct.
- 350 + + = 420
- Chose a three digit number. 345. How many hundreds -3: how many tens-4: how many ones-5. Add them
up and you get 12.
- Find other three-digit numbers that add up to the same. Order them form largest to smallest.
- How many ways can you make 250?
- Explain the relationship between adding 3 to 4 and adding 30 to 40 and 300 to 400
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Year 3 –probing questions
These questions can be used to check understanding and/or support the assessment of progress towards the end of year
expectations. In term 6 they can be supplemented with the ncetm Exemplification questions.
Addition & subtraction
- Joe says 92-38=66. Explain how you know he is wrong.
- What number is 27 more than 45? What number is 19 more than 45? Explain how you worked out these
calculations.
- Work out the missing numbers 3? + ?2 =85
- Work out these calculations: 72-5, 72-68, 70-3 ,82-15, 32-28 70-66. Explain your methods to a friend and
compare your ideas.
- Work out 47+38. Explain in your method.
- Paul says 72-15 =63. Write down an addition calculation you could use to check if he is correct.
- Jane has 45p in her pocket and 28p in her purse.
- How much more money does she need to buy a notebook for £1?
- 2_7 =1_7+ 400.
- How many different ways can you complete this equation. What is the largest/smallest possible total?
- 50_ -49_= 6 How many different ways can you complete this calculation?
- Make up an addition and subtraction problem involving 20 ,30 and 17
- Make up two easy addition problems and two harder addition problems. Why are they harder?
- Make up two easy subtraction problems and two harder subtraction problems. Why are they harder?
Multiplication & division
- Which multiplication fact could you use to check 32÷4=8
- What is the missing number in 35÷? =8. How do you know?
- What is 20 x 3 ? now use that information to work out 21x3, 33x3 40x3
- I have 17 5p coins. How much money is this? Show how you worked it out.
- Divide 75 by 5 and show your working
- How can use the fact then 60÷3=20 to find 72÷3?
- Dad does 25 minutes of exercise a day. How much exercise does he do in a week?
- 36 children need to sit on benches. Five children can sit on one bench. How many benches do we need?
- My number is less than 100. When I subtract 10 from my number the answer is a multiple of 5. When I
subtract 15 from my number the answer is a multiple of 10. What could my number be?
- Draw an array to show 8 x ?=40
- Alex has 3 times as many books as Fran. If Fran has 8 books, how many does Alex have?
- When I divide my number by 10 there is a remainder of 5. What could my number be?
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Year 3 –probing questions
These questions can be used to check understanding and/or support the assessment of progress towards the end of year
expectations. In term 6 they can be supplemented with the ncetm Exemplification questions.
- Cakes are packed into boxes of 5. When all the boxes are filed there is one cake left over. How many cakes
could there be?
- There are 19 books on the top shelf and 32 books on the bottom shelf. Some books are borrowed. Now
there are twice as many books on the bottom shelf as on the top shelf. How many books could have been
borrowed?
- Make up a problem where you need to work out 20 shared by 5 to solve it.
- How can doubling and halving help you to solve 13 x 16 or 19 x 14?
- Complete this division fact in as many ways as you can: 20
What multiplication facts did you use to
help you do this?
- Look at this statement:
35. What could the missing numbers be?
- Amy has fewer than 30 sweets. She counts the sweets in groups of 2 and she has 1 left over. She then
counts her sweets in groups of 5 and has 2 left over. How many sweets could she have?
- True or false? All two-digit numbers that end in 2 can be shared equally by three.
- Max worked out that 20 x5 x2 is 200. How could he have worked this out?
Fractions
- Would a chocolate lover rather have ½ or a 1/3 of the same big bar of chocolate? Explain your answer.
- Share 9 cakes between 4 people.
- Double my number is more than 30. Half my number is less than 10. What could my number be?
- There are 28 children in the class. 3/7 of them are girls. How many are girls?
- Find 1/6, ½ 1/3 and 1/5 of 30.
- I have a bag of sweets. ¾ of the sweets are chews, 1/10 are mints and the rest are fizzers. How many of
each type of sweet could I have?
- Tell me a number that it is easy to find 1/3 of. Why is it easy? Why is it hard to find 1/3 of 11?
- Jack made a list of the times it took him to walk to school; 21,19,23, 20, 27,19,20, 22, 24 ,20 . He says that
half the time it took him less than 20 minutes. Is he right?
- Take 20 cubes. Make a shape that is ½ red and ¼ blue. What fraction of the shape is not red or blue?
- Make up a fraction question about 4 apples and 8 grapes.
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Year 3 –probing questions
These questions can be used to check understanding and/or support the assessment of progress towards the end of year
expectations. In term 6 they can be supplemented with the ncetm Exemplification questions.
MEASURES
MEASURES
- My jug holds 2 litres. How many 150 ml cups can I fill? How much would be left in my jug?
- 80 m of rope is cut into equal pieces. How long could each piece be? What is the longest/shortest possible
length?
- How many lengths of 10 cm can you cut from 76 c m of tape?
- A potato weighs about 250 g. How much heavier is a 1 Kg bag of potatoes?
- A bottle of oil holds 300 ml. How many 15 ml tablespoons of oil can I pour from the bottle?
- A cow measures 1 m 24 cm. A horse is twice as tall. How tall is the horse?
MONEY
- How many 5p coins do you need for 35p?
- Put these amounts is order. Which is the smallest? How do you know?
- £0.56 125p £3.60 250p 7p £5 205p
- Coconut are 78p each. Bananas are £1.50 per Kg .
- How much would 2 coconuts and half a Kilo of bananas cost?
- I have 2p, 5p, 50p and 10p. How much more money to I need to buy a book for £1.50?
- I pay for my trip costing £7.80 with a £10 note. How much change do I need?
- Which is larger £0.75 or 90 p?
- My watch cost between £6 and £7. I paid using £1 coins and got 20 p and 5 p coins in my change. What
could it have cost?
- Anna has 4 silver coins. She pays 90 p for a Big Dipper ride. How much money could she have left?
- I saved 2 p and 5 p coins. I use some of this money to buy a chocolate bar for 27 p .How could I have paid?
- Everything in the shop is half price today- work out a new price list.
- Tara has 8 10 p coins, 4 5 p coins and 5 2 p coins. How much money does she have altogether?
- Tickets cost £5 each. I have £46. How many tickets can I buy?
TIME
- A film starts at 6.30 and ends at 8.10, How many minutes did the film last?
- I start my journey ay 7.45. It lasts 1 hour and 25 minutes. What time will I arrive?
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Year 3 –probing questions
These questions can be used to check understanding and/or support the assessment of progress towards the end of year
expectations. In term 6 they can be supplemented with the ncetm Exemplification questions.
- Which is heavier ½ of 18 Kg or ¼ of 32 Kg?
- Lunch time is 45 minutes long. It ends at 1 pm. What time does it start?
- How many weeks are there in 35 days?
GEOMETRY
- Describe some ways these two shapes are the same and some ways in which they are different.
- On the dotty paper draw some triangles that do not have a right angle
- Sort these shapes by properties-angles, sides or faces.
- How do you decide if a corner (vertices) is a right angle or not?
- My shape is symmetrical and has two right angles. What could it look like?
- Can a triangle have parallel sides?
- Tim says pyramids cannot have any parallel faces? Is he right?
- Which regular polygons have parallel sides? Can you find a pattern?
- Use a set-square and a ruler to draw a square with sides of 12 cm.
- One of the shapes does not belong in this set. Find the odd one out. Explain how you found it.
- Find a quadrilateral that has two angles that are smaller than right angles and two that are bigger than
right angles.
- Identify shapes that have pairs of parallel or perpendicular sides or edges.
STATISTICS
- Make a story using information from a graph, pictogram or table
- Ask and answer questions such as:
 “How many more….?
 “How many fewer/less….?
 “How many altogether….?
 “What is the difference between ….? “
 about data they have collected or secondary data
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