Week 4: Working with patterns and formulas

Introduction

You finished last week by using some word formulas from different aspects of everyday life. Some of these examples will not have been relevant for some people (not everyone is an archaeologist!) but they should still have all given you some great practice at using different formulas. This week the course turns to writing your own word formula. You’ll start by looking at spreadsheets and then do some number tricks to amaze your friends and family with. Finally, you’ll use doing and undoing diagrams to change what is being calculated by a formula. This is another aspect of mathematical study that is directly related to building skills for algebra. The final section concentrates on inequalities. These are used in the place of the usual equals sign, to show that something is greater or less than something else.

Watch Maria introduce Week 4:

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Transcript

Maria Townsend:

Once you’ve completed your study of patterns and formulas this week you’ll be able to do your first badge quiz. This is in a very similar format to the ones from Weeks 1 to 3. So if you’ve already completed those you’ll have no trouble doing this one.

Take your time to read over the questions very carefully as that will give you the best chance of showing your skills.

Good luck and see you next week.

End transcript

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After this week's study, you should be able to:

• understand how to read a spreadsheet
• understand how a spreadsheet is created
• use doing and undoing diagrams to change formulas
• interpret and use notation for inequalities.