Units like PISA’s
One real stimulus and three or four questions of rising difficulty that go round the modelling cycle: formulate, employ and interpret.
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Teaching Guide: PISA-Style Maths Problems
PISA and national assessments do not ask for bare sums: they show a real situation (a price list, a timetable, a map, a chart) and ask pupils to use it to decide, calculate and justify. This free PISA-style maths problems generator builds units like the released PISA items, with new numbers every time, for grades 4 to 10, and a marking guide with full, partial and no credit.
Student worksheet 
Answer key All four categories
Quantity, uncertainty and data, change and relationships, and space and shape, on their own or mixed as in a real paper.
Mixed formats
Multiple choice, complex multiple choice (yes or no), short numeric answers and open answers to argue a point.
Maps and plans to scale
Floor plans and maps printed at true size to measure with a ruler, and bar charts and line graphs to read and interpret.
Three PISA levels
PISA levels 1-2 for grades 4–6, levels 3-4 for grades 7–8 and levels 5-6 for grades 9–10.
Marking guide
For each question: the process, the format and what earns full, partial or no credit, with the answer worked out from the printed values.
Frequently Asked Questions about the PISA-Style Maths Problems
What is a PISA-style maths question?
It starts from a real-life situation and asks pupils to use maths to deal with it: read the data, choose the operation, calculate and explain whether the result makes sense. In PISA and similar assessments the questions come in units: one stimulus with several questions.
What do formulate, employ and interpret mean?
They are the three processes of the PISA maths framework. Formulate means turning the situation into maths (which operation, which formula); employ means doing the calculations and procedures; interpret and reason means going back to the situation, judging the result and justifying a decision. The marking guide gives the process of each question.
How are the open questions marked?
As in PISA, with codes: full credit when the answer and the reasoning are right, partial credit when the approach is sound but there is a slip or a part is missing, and no credit otherwise. The guide gives examples of each with the numbers on the sheet.
Which grades is it for?
Grades 4 to 10. Level 1 (PISA levels 1-2) suits grades 4–6, level 2 (PISA levels 3-4) grades 7–8 and level 3 (PISA levels 5-6) grades 9–10, and it is good practice for national assessments too.
Can I combine them with other worksheets?
Yes. Add exercises from any generator to the same worksheet, for example maths word problems, statistical charts or map scales. There are more resources in Mathematics.
Is any data sent to a server?
No. The worksheet is created in your browser, and templates are only saved in your browser’s memory.
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