Write the chain in the margin: multi-step reasoning
The Short Answer
Multi-step questions cross two or three topics at once and have to be done in the right order. The maths is rarely the hard part — the planning is. Name the topics, write the chain of steps in the margin before calculating anything, cross out any number the chain does not use, and answer in the units asked for.
What is a multi-step question?
The last section of the paper, and the one that separates marks more than any other.
By now your child can find a volume, and they can find a percentage. What these questions ask is for them to do both, in the right order, in about the time one of them would normally take — with one number in the question they are not supposed to use at all.
The maths is not the hard part. The planning is.
The Chain
Which topics is this crossing? Two or three of them — say them.
Write the chain in the margin. One, two, three. Before you calculate anything.
One link at a time, everything labelled, and cross out any number the chain does not use.
Answer the last link, in the units it asked for.
Why the chain earns its ten seconds
The number you are not meant to use
A box measures 20 cm by 15 cm by 10 cm and is filled to 40% of its volume. The box weighs 2 kg empty. What volume is filled?
The volume is 20 × 15 × 10 = 3000 cm³, and 40% of that is 1200 cm³.
The 2 kg is not needed. It is there deliberately, testing whether your child can tell what matters.
Cross it out as soon as the chain is written. A spare number left on the page drifts into a calculation later far more often than you would expect.
Where do pupils lose marks?
Answering an intermediate step, which is the whole design of the question.
Doing the steps out of order.
Using the spare number.
Giving the answer in the wrong units, after all the reasoning was right.
Try it yourself
Write the chain of steps before calculating anything. Cross out any number the chain does not use.
- A hall holds 240 people. A quarter leave at the interval. Half of those remaining leave at the end of the first act. How many are left?
- In that question, write the chain before calculating. What are the steps?
- A box measures 20 cm by 15 cm by 10 cm and is filled to 40% of its volume. The box weighs 2 kg empty. What volume is filled?
- Which number in question 3 is not needed?
- Why write the chain in the margin rather than working straight through?
- 90. A quarter of 240 leave, so 180 remain. Half of those leave, so 90 are left.
- Step one: how many leave at the interval. Step two: how many remain. Step three: half of that. Three steps, written down before a single calculation.
- 1200 cm³. The volume is 20 × 15 × 10 = 3000 cm³, and 40% of that is 1200.
- The 2 kg. The question asks about volume, and the weight of the empty box has nothing to do with it. Papers include a spare number deliberately, and crossing it out stops it being used by accident.
- Because the chain is where these questions are won. A child who calculates as they read tends to answer step two, since step two produces a real number that appears to answer something. Writing three steps down first makes it obvious that there is a third.
How much practice does this type need at home?
Make your child say the chain out loud before doing anything. What will you work out first? And then? And then?
If they cannot say three steps, calculating will not rescue them — and if they can, the arithmetic that follows is usually easier than the topics it came from. Three questions planned aloud teach more than ten worked in silence, because planning aloud is the thing the section is actually testing.
Free: a Maths workbook
Questions across the Maths question types, with the method printed at the top and full answers at the back. One workbook for the whole strand, not a sheet per question type.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the chain?
The list of steps, written in the margin before anything is calculated. One, two, three. For a question about a hall emptying, it might be: how many leave, how many are left, then half of that. It takes about ten seconds and it is the single most valuable thing your child can do on this section, because it converts a confusing question into three easy ones.
Why is there a number I do not need?
Because the paper puts one there. A question about volume that also tells you the weight of the empty box is testing whether your child can identify what is relevant. Crossing out the unused number as soon as the chain is written stops it drifting into a calculation later, which it otherwise does surprisingly often.
How does my child avoid answering an intermediate step?
Label every line of working. Not '180' but '180 people left after the interval'. An intermediate value with a label attached is obviously not the answer to a question about how many remain at the end. An unlabelled 180 sitting on the page looks exactly like an answer, and under time pressure it gets handed in.
How much time should the planning take?
Most of it. The arithmetic in these questions is generally easier than in the topics they are drawn from — they are testing sequencing rather than calculation. A child who spends forty seconds calculating and ten planning has it backwards, and will usually produce a correct calculation of the wrong thing.
Sources
- GL Assessment — 11+ familiarisation materials and question type descriptions Published 2025.
- Clever Clogs Academy — our own Year 4 and Year 5 lesson records, Winslow Published September 2025 to July 2026.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to GL Assessment or Buckinghamshire Council. Test arrangements change; always check the council's own pages for the current year's dates.
We Teach This Method Every Week in Winslow
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