Could you pass a National 5 Maths exam? Try it here and find out how our reporter got on

This week, the Commission on School Reform, the education arm of the independent think tank Enlighten, released freedom of information (FOI) request data which revealed that A-C grades for S4 pupils in National 5 maths - counted as a pass - was down to 39.5 per cent this year, something education experts branded “deeply concerning”.

According to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), around 50 per cent is required to gain the all-important C grade, with 60 to 69 per cent scoring a B and 70 per cent-plus an A.

But, while it is all very easy to criticise, I wonder how many of us fully grown adults could actually pass a Nat 5 maths paper? I decide to put it to the test, using a past paper from the SQA website. I offer the challenge out to the rest of my colleagues who drew the short straw of Christmas week in the office; telling them we need a bigger sample size to figure out if our pass rate would be above the Scottish average - but they decline.

For an arts correspondent, I like to think I’m not the worst at maths. It was one of three subjects I took to A-level at school, gaining a respectable B. I also spent some of my early journalistic career as a business correspondent, where I had to use numbers - as well as words - on a daily basis. But that was all a very long time ago.

Before I start, I sit down at the kitchen table with a sharpened pencil and ask my 13 year old daughter if I can borrow her scientific calculator. Even it looks a bit more complicated than the one I used when I was at school and I need a ten minute tutorial on how to use it. I’m getting nervous.

However, the first question appears quite simple and I’m reassured.

“The number of visitors to a zoo in 2024 was 118,750,” it says. “The number of visitors is expected to increase by four per cent each year over the next two years. Calculate the expected number of visitors in 2026.”

It’s just a case of working out 4 per cent of 118,750 and adding it on, then calculating 4 per cent of that answer and adding that. I got it right. Phew. I power through the next couple of questions.

Then we hit one about a rugby team. Never my forte. But calculating the mean average of their weights is easy enough. Finding the Standard Deviation, not so much so, even with the help of a formula sheet handily provided with the exam. I struggle and give up, opting to leave that one to the end, deciding I’ll give it another go in that last five minutes when the teacher is walking up and down the aisle, telling you to check your papers.

It’s the geometry questions that get me. We haven’t been able to reproduce them here online, but I can promise you, they were right doozies. It took me a minute to recall the sum of the angles of a triangle, but it was eventually there somewhere. While the rules of sine and cosine ring a bell, the details seem to have disappeared from my brain sometime in the early 2000s - and without a refresher course, I’m lost. I give up on two questions entirely, allowing myself one mark for the working on one.

Then we move on to algebra. This makes me happy. There was nothing I loved more at school than sitting down to a fresh, new, pure maths paper. Statistics and mechanics not so much. And yes, I did have friends.

Change the subject of the formula, the question says. I love it. I multiply both sides of the equation by 4 and am left with 4B = kc squared - 12c. Divide by c squared and Bob’s your uncle. Fun.

Next, more algebra. They’re spoiling me.

This one is all about Bob, Imran and Beth, who appear to be builders - or perhaps landscape gardeners. They have some paving slabs and some edging blocks. The first questions, to create formulas based on the known weights of their lorries, are easy. The next one is more of a brain scratcher, but we get there.

A question about scale looks straightforward, but it turns out it’s not. Zero marks. I struggle with a couple more geometry questions, still blanking on the sine/cosine thing. I comfort myself with the knowledge that had I had even an hour to revise before the test, I might have done a bit better - or maybe not.

My final score is 31 out of 50 - 62 per cent. I just about scraped a B, according to the SQA. That might sound all well and good, but with a higher level qualification in maths - an A-level is more akin to an Advanced Higher - you might expect I should have been able to sail through a Nat 5: I very much could not.

There were very few simpler questions, so for pupils who struggle with maths, or for the many who, since the pandemic, have regularly missed school, any marks at all are pretty hard to come by.

We’ve produced a condensed form of the past paper for you to try here. S4 students do not get multiple choice answers - and get marks for working as well as the final answers, so the paper you take will be easier than those issued on exam day, or the one I sat.

Let us know how you get on.