Puzzles, love stories and quizzes are some of the favorite tasks of young students. And when they come across a quiz, including grade 2 math word problems, they go through a very hard time. Even some of the most intelligent students, when coming across second-grade math word problems, have to pause and think for several minutes because these word problems for 2nd grade require all of their reading and comprehensions skills altogether. They are on the other hand very important for nourishing your brain.
Tips and Tricks to Solve Problems
1. Steps to solve word problems
Read and know the steps first and then sovle your problems step by step.
- Read and identify the problem
The most important thing in grade 2 math word problems is to read it thoroughly and then identify the problem. The word problem can be like a question or a simple statement but in both scenarios, it will provide you with all the information required to solve it. After determining the problem, you can decide which unit of measurement is needed for your final answer.
- Gather useful information
The second thing to do is to gather all the important and useful information from the word problem. You can create a list, graph, table or chart and outline all the important information you know in it, leave some column or spaces for the information you don't know yet. Grade 2 math word problems need a different format for the final result but this representation can help you work more quickly and easily.
- List your equation
The next step in solving the problem is to create an equation which can help you solve this question. All you need is to translate the math terms into the math symbols. You can use a letter for the variables, which are still unknown. In short, you need to create an algebraic equation which will then represent the problem.
- Solve problems and check your own answer
Now that you have the equation, use the equation to solve the problem that is given to you. You need to plug in the values for the variables which are known to find out the unknown variables. In order to prevent any kind of mistake, double check all of your calculations and make sure everything is right. Make sure you follow the order of operation in the multiplication, division, subtraction to sort out the right answer. The operation starts with the exponents and then come to the roots. After that multiplication and division and then finally, addition and subtraction are done.
- Verify the answer
Verification of the answer is very important and ensures success. Check all the steps and make sure that the answer is right, as far as you know, for the type of question. Use your common sense to estimate the answer to such questions and then see whether you are close to it or not. If the answer is not even close, examine all the steps and check where you went wrong and solve it all again.
2. Examples of word problems
Answer the questions given below.
The First Example (Addition)
The local food bank was receiving donations from the community.
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During the first week, they received 12 boxes of canned soup and 36 boxes of crackers. During the second week, they received 25 boxes of canned soup and 24 boxes of crackers. How many boxes of crackers did they receive in total?
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They had 40 boxes of pasta sauce in storage and received 47 more boxes last month. How many boxes of pasta sauce are there?
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In the storage room, there are 16 boxes of corn flakes. There were 19 more boxes of Cheerios than corn flakes. How many boxes of cereal are there? The food bank expected to recruit 60 volunteers. 34 men and 45 women signed up. How many volunteers were recruited?
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The local food bank opened 18 days in January and 21 days in February. If it will be opened for 15 days in March, how many days is it open in these three months?
You can download these questions here https://www.k5learning.com/free-math-worksheets/second-grade-2/word-problems/addition
Example 2 (Subtraction)
Read and answer the following questions:
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Cade had 87 marbles. He gave 18 to Dylan and 6 to Sam. How many does he have left? The aquarium has a lot of fish tanks. They bought 18 more fish and now the aquarium has 149 fish. How many fish did the aquarium have to begin with?
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Alyssa had 129 cookies. Aiyanna has 140 cookies and 34 crackers. How many more cookies does Aiyanna have than Alyssa?
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Daniel had some noodles. He gave 12 noodles to William. Now Daniel only has 54 noodles. How many noodles did Daniel have to begin with?
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Hayley had 25 meatballs and 6 potatoes on her plate. Kirsten stole some of her meatballs. Now Hayley has 11 meatballs on her plate. How many meatballs did Kirsten steal?
You can download them here: https://www.k5learning.com/free-math-worksheets/second-grade-2/word-problems/subtraction-1-3-digits
Example 3 (Multiplication)
Read and answer all questions. The class is doing a math activity. There are 5 groups of 4 students.
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How many students are there in the class?
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Each group should have 2 pairs of scissors. How many pairs of scissors are needed in total?
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Each student should get 2 worksheets and 3 sheets of construction paper. How many sheets of construction paper would each group of students have?
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Each student needs to answer 4 questions on each worksheet. How many questions does each student need to answer?
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Student gets 3 stickers on their reward chart for each correct answer. If a student gets 7 correct answers, how many stickers will he get?
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Write the number sentence with multiplication that fits this: "At the end of the class, each student gets 6 questions for homework. Each group will do 24 questions for homework.”
You can download them here: https://www.k5learning.com/free-math-worksheets/second-grade-2/word-problems/multiplication
Wind-up
Solving a math problem is indeed a very demanding task. However, you can use the tips and follow the steps which are given above to solve them. You can try these steps on the examples which are given above and test yourself.