Problems for the Early Secondary Years

These four sets of problems, from the Nuffield Mathematics Project, have been designed for young secondary-school students. It was hoped that teachers would find them useful in conjunction with the main work described in the teachers' guides. The majority of the problems are investigative. It was felt that the majority of students should at least be able to 'have a go' at most of them, but that they should also be encouraged, to the full extent of their individual abilities, to think round a problem and to devise alternatives and generalisations.

The problems which were originally printed on cards are reprinted here in the teachers' books, with solutions, a considerable amount of background material and suggestions for follow-up work. All the topics covered by these cards are included in the Teachers' Guides already published, but they are presented in such a way that students who have not followed a 'Nuffield-type' course can do the problems and enjoy them.

The mathematics covered by the Red Set is rather more sophisticated than that in the Green Set, and many of the cards could well be used with older students.

Although the Purple Set was the third set to be published, in mathematical sophistication it should rightly come between the Green Set and the Red Set.

Fifty two problems was the original trial version of the green set they were initally available on cards for issue to individual students. This volume not only contains the problems but solutions and discussion which could lead to creative follow-up work. The problems are numbered 1 to 52 in the binary system which might have led to further uses.

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