Worksheet generator

1.B — 28KA-0035Handshakes and pairs

• AI doubled the number of people, as if each person made two handshakes in total.
• CI let each person shake hands with all eight people including themselves before halving.
• DI multiplied 8 by 7 and forgot that each handshake was counted from both sides.
• EI multiplied 8 by 8, counting every ordered pair including a person with themselves.

2.C — 14KA-0051Complementary counting

• AI counted the multiples of 3 and gave that instead of the numbers that are not multiples.
• BI counted 21 as a multiple of 3 inside the range, so I removed one too many.
• DI removed only the multiples of 3 that are also even, so I subtracted three instead of six.
• EI gave the size of the whole range and forgot to remove anything at all.

3.C — 6KA-0067Tree diagrams

• AI counted the puddings only and forgot that the main course is also a choice.
• BI added the number of mains to the number of puddings instead of multiplying them.
• DI used three puddings as well as three mains, without reading how many puddings there are.
• EI doubled the answer, as if the order of the two courses made a different meal.

4.E — 8KA-0143Systematic listing

• AI counted the two available digits rather than the numbers they can build.
• BI counted the three positions instead of the numbers.
• CI used only two of the three positions when multiplying.
• DI multiplied 2 by 3, mixing the number of digits with the number of positions.

5.D — 6KA-0003Counting shapes hidden inside a figure

• AI counted only the three small triangles I could see as separate cells and stopped there.
• BI counted the three small triangles and added the whole big one, but forgot the two made of two cells.
• CI found the three small ones and one pair, but missed the second pair of neighbouring triangles.
• EI assumed every choice of two of the four lines would make a triangle, without checking each one.

6.C — 14KA-0009Counting cubes in a stack, including hidden ones

• AI counted only the cubes on the bottom layer and treated the rest as decoration.
• BI counted only the cubes whose faces I could actually see in the drawing.
• DI assumed every layer was a full 3 by 3 square and multiplied 9 by 2 for two layers.
• EI assumed the stack was a solid 3 by 3 by 3 block because it sits in a corner.

7.D — 75KA-0023The multiplication principle

• AI added the number of options at each step instead of multiplying them.
• BI treated the two digits as one choice of ten rather than two independent choices of five.
• CI assumed the two digits had to be different, so I used 5 times 4 for them.
• EI used 5 choices for the letter position as well, forgetting there are only three letters.

8.D — 9KA-0046Counting by position (sliding window)

• AI cut the board into four separate 2 by 2 blocks instead of sliding the square one step at a time.
• BI counted the three sliding positions along the top and doubled them for two rows.
• CI counted the positions along the top row and down the left column and added them.
• EI counted the sixteen small squares on the board rather than the 2 by 2 squares.

9.B — 3KA-0068Tree diagrams

• AI read the two in exactly two heads as the answer rather than as a condition to count.
• CI counted the outcomes with two or more heads, so I included the three-head one as well.
• DI counted the orderings of three different objects instead of listing the eight outcomes.
• EI gave the total number of possible outcomes rather than the number with exactly two heads.

10.B — 4KA-0069Inclusion–exclusion with two sets

• AI added 18 and 14 without removing the overlap, then subtracted from 30.
• CI subtracted the 6 who play both twice instead of once.
• DI subtracted only the footballers from the class and forgot the chess players entirely.
• EI found how many play at least one sport and gave that instead of how many play neither.

11.B — 15KA-0074Selections of a few objects

• AI doubled the group size instead of counting pairs.
• CI allowed a student to be paired with themselves, adding six impossible pairs.
• DI counted each pair twice, once in each order, and forgot to halve.
• EI multiplied 6 by 6, counting every ordered pair including a student with themselves.

12.A — 4KA-0154Inclusion–exclusion with two sets

• BI found how many students play at least one of the two and answered with that instead.
• CI added 18 and 15 to get 33, subtracted the 30 in the class, and used the 3 left over.
• DI removed the 7 from both groups and subtracted 11 and 8 from 30, taking the overlap away twice.
• EI answered with the number who play both, which is what the question gave me rather than what it asked for.

13.A — 56KA-0163Selections of a few objects

• BI counted ordered selections, so I counted the same three people once for every order they could stand in.
• CI multiplied the 8 members by the 3 places, which counts something quite different from a selection.
• DI divided the 336 ordered selections by 3 instead of by 3 factorial.
• EI chose 2 people rather than 3.

14.A — 6KA-0173Counting up to symmetry

• BI counted every colouring of the four edges and forgot that rotations make some of them identical.
• CI divided 16 by 4, but that only works when no painting is left unchanged by a rotation, and some are.
• DI halved 16, treating only the 180 degree turn as a symmetry.
• EI listed by how many edges are black but forgot that two black edges can be adjacent or opposite.

15.C — 8KA-0012Casework

• AI counted each pair of digits once instead of counting both orders, such as 17 and 71.
• BI listed the pairs starting from 1 and 7 and forgot the number 80, where the second digit is zero.
• DI included 08 as a two-digit number, but a two-digit number cannot start with zero.
• EI counted both orders of every pair and then counted the pairs that reverse to themselves twice as well.

16.D — 19KA-0018Complementary counting

• AI counted the codes that avoid 3 entirely and gave that as my answer without subtracting.
• BI counted the codes with a 3 in the first position only and forgot the other two positions.
• CI counted the codes with exactly one 3 and forgot the ones with two or three of them.
• EI counted every possible code and forgot to remove the ones with no 3 at all.

17.C — 6KA-0025Counting up to symmetry

• AI also treated bracelets that are mirror images as the same, but only rotations were allowed.
• BI divided the number of beads by itself rather than dividing the number of arrangements by the number of rotations.
• DI divided the 24 arrangements by 2 instead of by the 4 rotations of a circle of four beads.
• EI counted every arrangement in a line and forgot that rotating a bracelet gives the same bracelet.

18.A — 8KA-0031Counting paths on a grid

• BI assumed closing one junction removes about half the routes and halved the total of 20.
• CI counted the routes that pass through the closed junction and gave that instead of the ones that avoid it.
• DI subtracted only the 2 routes that reach the closed junction, not all the routes that continue through it.
• EI counted every route on the open grid and forgot to remove the ones through the closed junction.

19.D — 30KA-0047Counting by position (sliding window)

• AI counted only the sixteen smallest squares and stopped there.
• BI counted the small squares and the single big one, and forgot every size in between.
• CI counted the 2 by 2 squares as four rather than nine, splitting the board into blocks.
• EI used 4 by 4 positions for every size instead of shrinking the range as the square grows.

20.C — 48KA-0070Counting with restrictions

• AI treated the twins as one child and forgot they can also swap places with each other.
• BI glued the twins together into a single block but then forgot that the block can be arranged with the others in more ways than I counted.
• DI halved the 120 total, assuming the twins are together in exactly half the arrangements.
• EI counted every arrangement of five children and forgot the twins' condition entirely.

21.A — 12KA-0071Overcount, then correct

• BI divided the 120 arrangements by 6 rather than by the 10 movements that leave a bracelet looking the same.
• CI allowed for turning the bracelet but forgot it can also be flipped over.
• DI halved the 120 for flipping but forgot that turning also gives the same bracelet.
• EI counted every arrangement in a line, as if the bracelet had a fixed first bead.

22.B — 252KA-0075Complementary counting

• AI counted the numbers made entirely of digits other than 7 in every position, including a leading zero.
• CI counted the numbers with a 7 in each position separately and forgot that some were counted twice.
• DI added three lots of 90 and one extra hundred, double counting the 700s.
• EI counted the numbers with no 7 at all and gave that instead of subtracting it.

23.C — 55KA-0078Extremal / worst-case counting

• AI found the smallest possible total of the other nine and gave that instead of what is left.
• BI assumed the biggest number could be at most half the total.
• DI made the other nine numbers all equal to 1, forgetting that they have to be different from each other.
• EI ignored the other nine numbers entirely, as if the biggest could take the whole total.

24.C — 12KA-0090Counting cubes in a stack, including hidden ones

• AI counted the middle cube of each face, which has exactly one painted face rather than two.
• BI counted the corner cubes, which have three painted faces.
• DI counted every cube that is painted at all except the corners, without separating one face from two.
• EI gave the total number of small cubes rather than the ones with exactly two painted faces.

25.E — 14KA-0133Counting shapes hidden inside a figure

• AI counted the nine small squares and stopped, missing every larger one.
• BI counted the small squares and the whole board, forgetting the middle size entirely.
• CI found the 2 by 2 squares by splitting the board into blocks, getting two instead of four.
• DI slid the 2 by 2 square across and down but missed one of its four positions.

26.C — 4KA-0140The multiplication principle

• AI counted the codes that do start with A rather than the ones that do not.
• BI counted the letters available for the first position instead of counting whole codes.
• DI counted every arrangement of the three letters and forgot the restriction.
• EI allowed letters to repeat, which the words each exactly once rule out.

27.B — 7KA-0157The pigeonhole principle

• AI thought that one more than the number of colours must give three of a kind, which only guarantees a PAIR.
• CI got to two of each colour, then added one more for each colour instead of one more in total.
• DI assumed the worst case meant emptying the largest pile of 12 reds first.
• EI answered with the number of socks I want rather than the number I must take to be sure of them.

28.A — 91/216KA-0168Complementary counting

• BI added 1/6 three times, which counts the overlapping cases more than once and would exceed 1 for seven rolls.
• CI worked out the probability of NO six and forgot to subtract it from 1.
• DI found the probability of three sixes instead of at least one.
• EI gave the probability for a single roll and ignored that there are three.

29.A — 8KA-0175The pigeonhole principle

• BI used the number of possible remainders without adding one for the pair that must collide.
• CI doubled 7, thinking I needed two full sets of remainders.
• DI doubled 7 and added one, applying the pigeonhole idea to the wrong number of boxes.
• EI guessed from small cases without identifying what the boxes actually are.

30.A — 54KA-0177Overcount, then correct

• BI counted every line joining two vertices and forgot to remove the 12 sides.
• CI counted each diagonal from both of its endpoints and forgot to halve.
• DI used 12 x 10 without halving, double counting every diagonal.
• EI subtracted 24 rather than 12, removing each side twice.