Plan and Solve Two-Step Word Problems

Students solve word problems that require exactly two operations (any combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division). They practice identifying what each step finds, writing equations with a letter for the unknown at each stage, and checking that their answer makes sense in context.

Try three of them

Real questions from this skill, graded here. No account, and nothing is saved.

Grade 4 · Multistep Word Problems · question 1 of 3

0 of 20

20 rungs. A star at the top.

Maya has 25 stickers. She gets 14 more, then gives 8 to Ben. How many stickers does she have now?

How it is taught

0:00 of 4:39

A two-step problem needs two operations in order.

The first answer is used in the second step.

Read it: One step, then the next

Tom buys 4 packs of 6 stickers, then gives 5 to his sister. First 4 × 6 = 24, then 24 − 5 = 19. He has 19 left.

Find the first thing the story does, and work it out.
Carry that answer into the next step.
Keep going until the story is done: the last answer is the answer.

Each step uses the answer before it, so the order of the story is the order of the steps.

Writing each step on its own line keeps every number in its place.

Stopping after one step answers a different question from the one the story asks.

Work the story one step at a time, and carry each answer into the next step.

Stopping at 24, the first answer.

The story keeps going: 5 stickers are given away, so 24 − 5 = 19.

A shop has 6 boxes of 15 pens. It sells 40 pens. How many pens are left? — 50. 6 × 15 = 90, then 90 − 40 = 50.

4 books × $6, paid with $50 — how much change?

Maya buys four books at six dollars each. She pays with a fifty-dollar bill. How much change does she get?

Let's pull out what we know: four books, six dollars each, and a fifty-dollar bill.

This is a two-step problem. First we'll find the total cost, then we'll find the change.

Step one: let c be the cost. We multiply — four times six.

Four times six is twenty-four. The books cost twenty-four dollars.

Step two: let m be the change. We subtract — fifty minus twenty-four.

Fifty minus twenty-four is twenty-six.

Let's check: twenty-four plus twenty-six equals fifty. It works!

Grade 4 · Multiply, then subtract — two steps to the answer

Maya gets twenty-six dollars in change. Great two-step thinking!

What you see

While they climb, your page writes one true line to ask about tonight, and a short note each Sunday.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Did you know?

A chessboard has 64 squares — share them out between the 8 rows and each row holds exactly 8.

Today’s goal: 1 star — one skill mastered, every rung of its ladder climbed
Climbing now: Divide within 100

An example student.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Maya earned 2 stars this week — Interpret multiplication as equal groups, which took 6 answers over 3 days before its star landed 3 days ago and Multiply by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Next up: Divide within 100.

An example week.

More of the library

Every skill has a page

Standard

CCSS.4.OA.A.3

Solve multistep word problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers using the four operations, including problems in which remainders must be interpreted

Grade 4

Quoted from the Common Core State Standards.

Where this sits

Comes after

Leads to

What a star here means

A star here is the top of a twenty-rung ladder, in four blocks of equal length — three of facts and one of the skill used in a real question — where a right answer climbs one rung and a wrong one drops back to the start of the block, never below it. The star is kept for good. How we grade

All of Grade 4

This is one rung of 71 in Grade 4 mathematics, in the order they build on each other.

Practise this skill free

14 days of every skill, practice packets, Fluency sheets and up to four students. No card.

Start free