Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Last Few Months Of School

Part 7 - Oh...Why Is Maths So Hard?

Friday, 19th of April, at School, 2pm
Today had been a long day for the chipmunks and chipettes, they had been given lots of practice questions and homework to do in a few lessons. They all expected school to be like this and be a bit stressful but it had just drained everyone by the 5th lesson of the day
Alvin, Brittany and Eleanor had just come in their 5th lesson Maths
"Eleanor, I don't think I can take much more today, I'm really tired out after this full week of school" explained Brittany
"Yea me too, hopefully me you and Alvin can work as a group in this lesson" called Eleanor
Once everyone had come in the classroom, Mr Paul stood up and told the class what this lessons plans were
"Ok everyone, we are about half way through April now and you have around a month and a half left before your maths exam, so today we will do a practice paper and I will see what people need help with. This is so I can help you one to one with whatever your struggling with" explained Mr Paul
As Mr Paul started handing the maths papers out, Alvin spoke up
"Brittany, I didn't bring my calculator today, did you?" Asked Alvin
"Yea I got mine....see if Mr Paul can let you borrow one" suggested Brittany
Alvin put his hand up and waited for Mr Paul to answer him
"Yes Alvin?" Asked Mr Paul
"Can I borrow a calculator please? I have forget mine today" asked Alvin
"You won't need one today Alvin, this is a non calculator exam" replied Mr Paul
"Oh right, that's ok then" called Alvin quickly
After a few minutes, Mr Paul had walked around the classroom and everyone had got a practice paper
"This will be done in silence under exam conditions so no talking for 1 hour, until the practice exam is done, is that clear?" Asked Mr Paul
"Yes Mr Paul" replied Everyone
"Ok you can start now" called Mr Paul
Everyone opened their papers and started
Alvin looked at question 1 in confusion
"How is anyone going to do 64 X 87 without a calculator..." Alvin thought to himself
He attempted all the multiplication questions and then moved on
Brittany had skipped question 1 because like Alvin, she was not sure how to do multiplication without a calculator
However, question 2 was not too bad for her
Part A was: state the nth term in this sequence. 3, 7, 11, 15, 19....
Part B was: put this fractions is order of smaller to bigger...
Brittany did the nth term quite easily, she knew it was the 4 times table and it was -1 each time so she put down "4n -1" as her answer
For part B, Brittany was struggling. She didn't understand fractions and it was giving her a hard time
Eleanor was halfway through question 3 now and it was a bit if a challenge for her
The question was: If 2 pens and a notebook cost £1.80 then how much would one pen on its own cost?
Eleanor had already made the objects into letters for algebra so she started the question ok but was stuck after that step
After a few minutes, Eleanor guessed that the 2 pens must make £1 and the notebook has to make 80p so the price of 1 pen would be 50p
Alvin was on question 4 now and he had been given 4 different views/faces of a shape. The front, the side and from above
All Alvin had to do was draw the shape in 3D and he gave it a good go...
Alvin drew the shape, and was quite happy with it
"Ok, next question..." Alvin thought to himself
Brittany had a look at question 5 and started to panic again. It was another algebra question
The question was: Factorise Fully, 3a3b + 12a2b2 + 9a5b3
"Oh I can't do these questions....they are too hard" Brittany thought to herself
Brittany quickly scribbled an answer down and moved on
Eleanor looked at question 6 and she seemed OK about it. It was a histogram question where you had to find out the numbers in the sequence and add some bars to the graph
"I can do that, that's not a problem really for me" Eleanor thought to herself
Eleanor got started with the question and after a few minutes she had answered it and was quite happy with herself
Alvin looked at question 7 and decided it was impossible
"That is impossible, who the hell can do that?" Alvin thought to himself
It was a triangle on a straight line saying 65 degrees on the straight line and X inside the triangle. Then the angle at the top of the triangle said Y and Alvin had to find out what angles X and Y were
Alvin knew all angles in a triangle must make 180 degrees but he was a bit lost on how to do this question
"I guess j need to practice angles a little more" Alvin thought to himself
35 minutes later....
It was now 3pm and the school bell rung
Mr Paul then stood up and asked everyone to stop writing in their practice paper
Everyone stopped writing in their practice papers and passed them to Mr Paul
"Thank god that's over, I found that quite hard" called Alvin
"Yea me too, I couldn't stand them algebra questions" replied Brittany
On the way out of the classroom, Brittany spoke to Eleanor
"So how did you find that maths paper, sister?" Asked Brittany
"I could answer some of the questions in the paper but it was really challenging" replied Eleanor
"At least we can go home now..." Called Alvin
"We can't yet Alvin, we have our English revision class to attend too" called Brittany
"Oh yea...darn it! It hate life right now..." Complained Alvin
"I'm going to the science revision tonight with Theodore, will see you guys at 4pm at the school reception" explained Eleanor
"Ok, will see you later Eleanor" called Brittany
As Alvin and Brittany were walking up to English, Alvin spoke up
"Brittany?" Asked Alvin
"Yea" called Brittany
"Do you think Simon and Jeanette will help us do revision for maths?" Asked Alvin
"Yea I think so....but if we are going to ask them then we need to make sure they are free, because Jeanette tends to get mad if someone asks her for help and she is busy" explained Brittany
"Oh right, yea Simon is similar" joked Alvin
"I am so worried about doing our real maths exam you know....I just really struggle with maths" explained Brittany in a sad voice
"Aw don't worry Brittany, we have a month and a half yet before the exam and we will have done lots more revision by then, in school and at home with our family" replied Alvin trying to keep Brittany happy
Alvin and Brittany had now made it to the English classroom and they both entered for there 1 hour revision lesson
Hi everyone, thanks so much for reading, I hope you liked this part. Alvin and Brittany seemed to struggle with that maths exam but like Alvin said, they have lots of time for revision at the moment.
Anyway, what fun things/activities do you think the chipmunks and chipettes will be doing this weekend along side their revision? Do you think they will be going swimming? Or shopping? Or watching Football? Or something else completely different?
Let me know in the comments below 👇
If you liked this part, don't forget to 'Vote' and leave a happy face/emoji in the comments below too 👇
Thanks again for reading everyone, I will update again as soon as possible 😋