About Math Sprint

Sixty seconds of mental arithmetic, one question at a time. The questions start with sums anyone can do in their head and climb: two-digit addition, then times tables, then two-step arithmetic where the multiplication has to happen first, and finally percentages and squares. Type the answer and it is taken the moment it is long enough, so the only thing between you and the next question is knowing it.

A run of right answers is worth more than the same answers scattered: the multiplier steps up every five in a row and reaches three, so a clean streak late in the minute is worth more than everything before it. A wrong answer costs two seconds rather than points, which means guessing is never worth it but one slip does not end the run.

Three ways to play. Sprint is the one above. True or false shows you a sum with an answer already on it — usually a near miss, a dropped carry or a neighbouring times table — and asks whether it is right. Operators takes the signs out of an equation and asks you to put them back, which is the order-of-operations problem in its purest form: 6 _ 3 _ 2 = 20 has exactly one answer, and it is not the one you read left to right. The daily challenge is a sprint, the same questions in the same order for every player, ranked by score once a day.

Tips to win

• Protect the streak: at five in a row everything is worth half as much again, and at twenty it is worth triple
• For two-digit multiplication, break it up — 17 × 6 is 60 + 42, which is quicker than the column method in your head
• In true or false, check the last digit first: most wrong answers give themselves away without working the whole sum
• In operators, look at the size of the target — if it is far bigger than the numbers, a multiplication has to be in there somewhere