“MUM . . . Dad . . . what’s a preposition?” Questions like this fill most parents with dread – but they’re very much back on the agenda as home-schooling resumes in Lockdown 3.
Never fear . . . Sun Home School is here! Every day this week we will be running learning activities for kids aged four to 11 to help ease the strain.
Yesterday was a timetable to fill those gaps in your child’s schedule. Today it’s 50 most-Googled home-schooling questions – answered by maths expert and University Challenge star Bobby Seagull.
In Lockdown 1, online searches rocketed for problems such as “what is a factor in maths?” and “what is a pronoun?”.
The “factor” question was asked 33,100 times in April – up 2,485 per cent, a survey for shoe shop found. Some 52 per cent of parents sought Google’s help with their kids’ homework, the study revealed.
Today’s 50 questions show the number of searches since April for each – and the percentage increase on the year before.
Challenge your son or daughter and keep their brains busy by throwing a few at them. You never know . . . you might even learn something yourself!
1. How to work out percentages?
Bobby: “The word per cent comes from ‘per 100’. So if you had a test score of 18 out of 25, you divide 18 by 25 and multiply by 100, which gives 72 per cent.”
2. What is a verb?
Bobby: “A word that describes an action or state of being. For example, ‘cleaning’ here: Your son Peter was cleaning his room (though in real life Peter might need a bit of a nudge!).”
3. What is the mean in maths?
Bobby: “The arithmetic mean gives you an average from a set of numbers. So if West Ham score one, two and six goals in three games, you add up the goals (1 + 2 + 6 = 9) and divide by the number of games (9/3), which is a mean of three goals per game.”
4. What is a normal heart rate?
Bobby: “We measure this by our pulse rate – the number of times our heart beats per minute. A normal resting rate is about 60 to 100 beats per minute but rockets when we do exercise.”
5. What is a factor in maths?
Bobby: “When we multiply two whole numbers, this gives us a product, such as 3 x 5 = 15. So 3 and 5 are factors of 15. If you think of an egg box, 12 eggs could be split into rows of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12. All of these are factors of 12.”
6. What is a noun?
Bobby: “It identifies a person, place or thing (it’s a proper noun when it names one of them, such as with London). So some common nouns might be a man, a dog and a toy.”
7. What are prime numbers?
Bobby: “Whole numbers that are divisible by only two numbers – one and the number itself – without leaving a remainder. So 2, 3, 5 and 7 are the first few prime numbers. There are infinitely many primes but 2 is the only even prime number. Our modern encryption technology that keeps data safe across the internet depends on primes.”
8. What is an adjective?
Bobby: “It can be used to modify meaning by making words more specific and interesting. We can place them before a noun. So rather than saying, ‘I like jackets’, you can say, ‘I like sparkly jackets’.”
9. What is an adverb?
Bobby: “This is a word that can describe the verb. So instead of saying, ‘I danced along to Strictly’, you can say, ‘I danced fabulously along to Strictly’.”
10. What is population of the UK?
Bobby: “It’s almost impossible to know the exact population at an exact time, but our best estimates suggest 68million people. Or 68million and one, if you include yourself.”
11. What countries are in Asia?
Bobby: “According to the UN, there are 48 countries, so it would take a while to list them all. The largest by population is China with 1.4billion and the smallest Brunei, with around 440,000 people, about the size of Cardiff.”
12. When to use a semicolon?
Bobby: “You can use this instead of a full stop between two connected sentences so it links them. Be warned, though, because the semicolon is quite a divisive punctuation mark during the modern era.”
13. How many bones in a human body?
Bobby: “An adult human skeleton has from 206 to 210 bones. However, we are born with around 270 bones. Don’t panic about this loss, the decrease is natural, as some bones fuse together.”
14. How many countries in Africa?
Bobby: “There are 54 recognised by the United Nations. However, if you had asked this in 2011, before South Sudan gained independence from Sudan, the answer would have been 53.”
15. What is a preposition?
Bobby: “When someone offers their hand in marriage . . . no, sorry, that’s proposition. A preposition is a word that tells you where and when something is in comparison to something else. For example, the word ‘on’ in ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall’.”
16. What is a pronoun?
Bobby: “It is used to replace a noun, so we don’t have to keep repeating the same noun. They are words such as he, she, it, they, this. For example, if someone asks you what Lily had for lunch, you can replace her name and say, ‘She had a sausage roll’.”
17. Where are your kidneys?
Bobby: “At the back of your abdomen, just under your rib cage. There is one on either side of your spine.”
18. How many teeth do adults have?
Bobby: “As long as you haven’t lost any by eating too many sweets, adults should have 32 teeth, 12 more than the baby set. The final four, wisdom teeth, arrive from around ages 17 to 21 (although their arrival doesn’t necessarily bring wisdom).”
19. How many countries in Europe?
Bobby: “We could be here for hours debating what Europe is. But based on the European Union, there are 27 countries. The number will be higher, closer to 50, if you look at geographical Europe. And don’t try to ask why Australia is in Eurovision.”
20. What countries are in the Middle East?
Bobby: “Most accepted definitions give 18, including Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. It’s fascinating to think that the region is the birthplace of three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”
21. How to calculate standard deviation
Bobby: “Standard deviation measures how spread out numbers are. So in a team of basketball players with most people around 6ft 4in, the height has a small standard deviation compared to a football team with a wide range of heights, the short-est being 5ft 7in and the tallest being 6ft 6in.”
22. Who invented the light bulb?
Bobby: “Most people credit American inventor Thomas Edison with this, but Sir Joseph Swan from Sunderland is also known as an early developer of the device. In fact, in 1881, Swan helped the Savoy Theatre in London become the first public building in the world to be lit throughout by electricity.”
23. What continent is Australia in?
Bobby: “The trick answer could be the country Australia is in the continent of Australia. But some geographers consider Australia as part of Oceania.”
24. What is a square number?
Bobby: “Imagine if you laid out coins in a grid of 1 by 1, then 2 by 2, 3 by 3, 4 by 4 and so on. You would get 1, 4, 9, 16 and so on (square numbers), as these are numbers that have been multiplied by themselves.”
25. What is an organism?
Bobby: “An entity that displays signs of life. It can be single-cell, or a complex life form such as a plant or animal.”
26. How to add fractions?
Bobby: “You need to get them to have a common denominator. So if adding 1/2 + 1/3, you can convert to 3/6 + 2/6 which gives you 5/6.”
27. How long does it take to get to the moon?
Bobby: “The equation needed is “time equals distance divided by speed”. The faster your speed, the quicker the journey. The moon is 240,000 miles away, so it would take a spacecraft about three days. And no, the moon will not be made of cheese when you get there.”
28. Where is your appendix?
Bobby: “On the lower right side of your abdomen. It is a vestigial organ, which means it serves no vital function.”
29. What is an isotope?
Bobby: “A chemical element of an atom with a different number of neutrons from the standard for that element.”
30. What is climate change?
Bobby: “How long have you got? In a nutshell, it describes the change in the average conditions in various regions over a long period of time. We often use indicators such as temperature and rainfall.”
31. Where is your liver?
Bobby: “About the size of a football, it is in the upper-right part of your abdomen, beneath the diaphragm and above your stomach. It’s the largest internal organ but our skin is actually the largest organ of our body.”
32. Where is Mount Everest?
Bobby: “The highest mountain above sea level, it is located in the Himalayas, across the China-Nepal border. Though we call it Everest, it is named after George Everest, which is pronounced ‘Eve’ (like the girl’s name) and ‘rest’.”
33. Who invented electricity?
Bobby: “Electricity is actually a natural force, so it didn’t have to be invented. But most people give credit to American Benjamin Franklin for the discovery.”
34. What are vertices?
Bobby: “The singular vertex (not a vortex from black holes!) is just a corner of a shape. So a regular cube would have eight corners, or vertices.”
35. How many planets are there?
Bobby: “There are eight in our solar system and Pluto is not one of them – in 2006, the International Astronomical Union relegated it to a dwarf planet.”
36. What is a continent?
Bobby: “A large, continuous, discrete mass of land, ideally separated by an expanse of water. From largest to smallest in area they are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia.”
37. What are conjunctions?
Bobby: “Joining words that connect different parts of sentences. Common ones include ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘yet’, ‘so’.”
38. What are elements?
Bobby: “The ancient Greeks believed there were four elements, which everything was made up of: Earth, water, air and fire. But we know now that an element is a substance that cannot be broken down into any other substance, and each has its own type of atom.”
39. What is an atom?
Bobby: “Basic units of matter created after the Big Bang 13.7billion years ago. The basic particles that make up an atom are protons, neutrons and electrons.”
40. What continent is Russia in?
Bobby: “Europe and Asia. You can split Russia along the line of the Ural Mountains , the left being European Russia and the right Asian Russia. While about three-quarters of Russians live in the European part, three-quarters of its territory is in the Asian part.”
41. What is an independent variable?
Bobby: “Something you can change during an experiment. For example, you might change the temperature to see how it impacts a reaction.”
42. What are enzymes?
Bobby: “Proteins whose role is to act as biological catalysts. They can speed up reactions without being used up.”
43. How to work out square metres?
Bobby: “A square metre is essentially a box that is 1 metre wide by 1 metre tall, that is 100cm by 100cm or 10,000 centimetres squared.”
44. How old is the Earth?
Bobby: “4.54billion years (plus or minus 50million years).”
45. How to divide fractions?
Bobby: “I always think of KFC – not the fast-food chain but Keep Flip Change. If you are dividing 2/3 by 1/4 you keep the first fraction the same, flip the second fraction to 4/1 and change the divide sign to a times sign. So it equals 2/3 x 4/1 = 8/3.”
46. What are stem cells?
Bobby: “Special human cells that can develop into different cell types, ranging from brain cells to muscle cells. They can be split into two main forms – embryonic cells (from unused embryos) and adult stem cells.”
47. What is the world population?
Bobby: “Currently 7.8billion. With 250 babies born each minute, that’s an additional ten by the time you’ve read this sentence.”
48. How many counties in England?
Bobby: “The Historic Counties Trust lists 39. But the Local Government Act in 1972 saw the map redrawn to add metropolitan counties such as Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire. There have been more added since.”
49. What is a polygon?
Bobby: “Not a character from the Transformers movies, but a two-dimensional shape. It has straight lines, so no curves. It also has to be closed so that all the lines connect up.”
50. How many people have walked on the moon?
Bobby: “Twenty-four American astronauts made the trip to the Moon between 1968 and 1972, but only 12 of these walked on the surface. We all know the first is Neil Armstrong in 1969 but the last was Harrison Schmitt in 1972.”
6,000.000+downloads/Free/Bengali/Version2.3.4
777 BDT IPL 2025 Sports First Deposit Bonus
