Test your Maths skills

Test your Maths skills

Some Modules - in particular those with 'Statistics' or 'Epidemiology' in the Module title - will require some basic mathematics.

These self-assessment quizzes will help you to decide if you would benefit from refreshing your basic maths skills. 

These materials are not intended to teach statistics or specific techniques, they are for revision of basic concepts only. 

The materials are divided into 4 quizzes consisting of the following topics:

• Quiz 1: Arithmetic, fractions, decimals, percentages, rounding, ratios and proportions, order of operations (brackets), simple calculator arithmetic;
• Quiz 2: simple algebra, simple equations, simple inequalities, using and rearranging formulae;
• Quiz 3: simple graphs, applied problem solving and probabilities (using 'mathematical thinking'), exponents (powers) and standard form (including calculator use);
• Quiz 4: logarithms (including calculator use), transforming curve to straight line graph.

Once you start your LSHTM Programme, if you need any further help the Basic Maths Support Sessions will be available through Moodle, follow this link to LSHTM Basic Maths Skills,after the start of the academic year.

As a guide, the questions may take you about 30-60 minutes to complete (excluding the time taken to carefully study the worked solutions). The important thing to consider is whether you understand how the answers are obtained rather than the speed with which you are able to do them. Even if you get the answers correct, you might like to read through the worked solutions as some contain additional information about calculator use or other background information, although this will add to the time estimation.

* Note * 

There is often more than one way to obtain the correct answer, if you have your own method that consistently leads you to the correct answer then continue using your own method. Please also be aware that here, we cover some basic maths concepts in more depth than you will need for most LSHTM Programmes. 

We hope that this helps to improve your understanding and build your confidence. For example, most students at LSHTM find that they do not need to remember or fully understand all the rules of indices or rules of logarithms, but some students prefer to have a sense of how these rules are linked so that they feel more comfortable using logarithms in their statistics and epidemiology Modules.

If after attempting the self-assessment exercise, you feel that you are struggling to follow through the solutions, then have a look through the PowerPoint slides and Word documents for further guidance and exercises for extra practice (and check your answers against the solutions provided).  These will become available to you after you have attempted each quiz.

You will need a calculator for some of the questions and exercises. The recommended calculator used in these materials is the Casio fx-85GT or fx-85GT PLUS.