Primary 6 · Chapter 5
An average shares a total equally across all the data values. Learn to find the total and count, recover a missing value, and recalculate when the group changes. Watch the introduction, then try three questions with animated step-by-step solutions.
Self-paced lessons · Modelled on top school exam questions · No sign-up for the samples
The Average chapter
Watch · The introduction
See why a zero still counts, and how sharing the total equally gives the average.
Try · Modelled on top school exam questions
Try each question yourself first, then enter your answer to check it. Open any solution to follow the visual explanation, one step at a time. No sign-up is needed for these three questions.
Question 1 of 3 · Start here
Find the total and count every value.
Find the average of 29, 31, 0, 44 and 36.
Ans: 28
Question 2 of 3 · Build on it
Use the given average to recover the total first.
A costume club bought 5 pieces of fabric with an average length of 2.6 m. Four of the pieces measure 2.4 m, 3.1 m, 2.2 m and 2.5 m. What is the length of the fifth piece?
Ans: 2.8 m
Question 3 of 3 · Challenge
Compare two totals, then find the size of the group you need.
In a charity run, the 6 runners of the red squad completed an average of 14 km each. The blue squad then joined them, and the 15 runners of the two squads together completed an average of 15.2 km each. What was the average distance completed by each blue-squad runner?
Ans: 16 km
Use the lesson links beside each question for focused explanation, or browse all six lessons below. For ongoing practice and saved progress, see how the practice plan works.
The chapter · Six question types
A linked row opens a published lesson with its own film. Explore the explanation and available practice on that page.
The order · Three groups
What an average is
5.1
Going through the total
5.2 to 5.4
Counting the data, and mixed practice
5.5 and 5.6
The number tells you where a question type sits in this chapter, not what your child needs to learn first. A child who has already met a type in school can practise it without working through the ones above it.
The papers · Modelled against top school papers
Paper 1 has 30 questions for 50 marks: 18 multiple-choice questions and 12 short-answer questions. Paper 2 has 15 questions for 50 marks: 5 short-answer questions and 10 structured or long-answer questions.
It is the whole of the Primary 6 Statistics strand, and almost every paper includes some of it. A Paper 1 average question is usually a bare list of numbers or a small table for one or two marks; higher-mark items appear in Paper 2, and they are almost always a value recovered from a total, a set that gains or loses a member, or a reading taken off a graph before anything is added.
Close to half of Paper 2 questions combine two or more topics, often average with ratio or algebra. Practice questions are not labelled by type, so children must choose the methods they need.
Everything here is modelled against top school papers. Those papers are never reproduced, and every question on this site is original.
Written working · Clear methods, line by line
These examples show Mathweave's clear, consistent layout for each method. The layout is informed by the answer keys we reviewed.
Parents · Asked and answered
The question types follow the latest MOE Primary Mathematics syllabus. The syllabus defines what is taught; the papers we model against show how it is examined.
No, and that is deliberate. Under the current MOE syllabus speed is not primary content at any level, and Primary 6 Statistics is the average of a set of data and nothing else. Older papers still print average speed because those cohorts sat an earlier syllabus.
We write the questions ourselves rather than copy them from papers. Each chapter is modelled on the types of question that top school papers set. A question may look like one your child has met before because it is the same type.
The practice plan adds more questions modelled on top school exam questions, with animated solutions and saved progress, so you can see which types your child can complete independently.