1.3 Solutions not problems 15
enjoyable experience and one which can help
you with many things in both your home
and working life.Summary
• Problem solving is about the use of logic,
often including simple mathematics,
to address real-life situations and aid
decision making.
• The fundamental skills of problem solving
are: selecting relevant data, finding
appropriate procedures to solve problems
and comparing data in different forms.
• Learning to solve problems successfully
develops skills which are useful in everyday
life: at home, in education and at work.We found the first multiple of 9 with 8 full-
price payers: $124 − $88 = $36, which means
there were 4 students paying $9. We carried
on checking, just in case there were other
solutions. There weren’t any, so C (4)
is the correct answer. In practice, most of
the working could be done mentally as it is
quite simple, so the problem could be solved
quite quickly.
Problems you will meet later in the book
will have similarities to this in that they are
based on realistic scenarios and reflect the
processes needed to function efficiently in
much of employment.
The challenges of problem solving are, in
principle, no different from doing a puzzle
such as Sudoku in a magazine and many are
the type of thing some people will do for fun.
Solving such a challenge is a rewarding and