How to pass Functional Skills maths Level 2

Level 2 is one paper in two sections: a short non-calculator section, then a longer calculator section that carries three quarters of the marks. The pass mark is set per paper, usually around 55–60%. You don't need to be good at everything — you need to be reliable on the topics that come up every time and not throw away the easy marks.

The topics that come up every time are percentages (including percentage change and working backwards), ratio and proportion, area and perimeter, unit conversions, averages and range, and reading data from tables and charts. Between them they account for well over half the paper.

Don't start at page one of a revision guide. Take a diagnostic — ours is free — that tests each Level 2 skill separately and tells you which ones are missing. Most learners find it's four or five specific skills, not 'maths'. That's a list you can clear in a few weeks.

Then work the list weakest-first. Ten minutes a day on your own weak skills beats an hour a week re-reading things you already know.

Level 2 questions are multi-step and marked for method as well as answer. A clear method with an arithmetic slip usually still gets most of the marks; a bare answer with no working can get none if it's wrong. So write the steps down, every time, even on the calculator section.

Read the question twice and underline what it's actually asking. A common way to lose marks is answering the question you expected rather than the one on the page — giving a total when it asked for the difference, or a percentage when it asked for an amount.

Once your weak skills are fixed, sit whole practice papers timed, in the on-screen format if that's how you'll be examined, with a calculator only in the calculator section. Afterwards go through every dropped mark and name why: didn't know it, misread it, or rushed it. Each has a different fix.

Two or three timed papers in the fortnight before the exam is enough to make the format familiar. Don't sit one the night before — a bad score then only costs you sleep.

Stop learning new topics and consolidate. Redo the questions you got wrong earlier. Check you can do the non-calculator basics quickly: times tables, fractions of amounts, percentages of amounts, adding and subtracting decimals. Make sure you know your calculator — the one you'll actually use — and how it handles fractions and brackets.

On the day: do the questions you're confident about first, show working on everything, and leave no question blank. A method mark is a method mark.