Arithmetic Word Problems About Sports

You can use arithmetic daily in many settings. Here are some suggestions for how you can make up arithmetic story problems about sports and athletic events. To see more suggestions for other contexts go to Use Arithmetic Everyday.

Sports and athletics provide many opportunities for using numbers and arithmetic. You can make problems about teams and players or about activities that involve the learner. You can ask questions about:

Scores:
What is the total?
What is the difference between the winning and losing score?

Times and speeds:
How fast...?
How long...?
How much faster (more time, less time)?

Team statistics:
How many awards...?
How many more awards for one team than another?
How much taller (heavier, faster) is one player?

Addition

There are 14 players on the field and 10 players on the bench. How many total players are there?

You swam (or biked, or ran) 2 miles each day for 4 days. What is your total distance completed?

That player scored 3 goals (baskets, points, etc.) in the last game, and 7 goals the game before, and 8 goals in the game a week ago. How many goals did that player score altogether?

Subtraction

The winning team scored 97 points. The other team scored 56. How many more points did the winners make in the game?

Your team has 23 points and the other team has 44. How many more points does your team need to tie? ... to win?

Your pulse rate was 68 before you ran, now it is 74. What is the difference in your pulse rate?

Multiplication

If there are 100 rows in the stadium with approximately 8 people in each row, can you estimate how many people are here in the stadium? If each person paid $5 per ticket, then how much money did everybody pay for tickets altogether?

If you do 25 sit-ups a day, every day for the next 28 days, how many sit-ups will you have done?

The team shot 47 baskets, at 2 points for each basket, how much did they score?

Division

You swam (biked or ran)14 miles this week. How many miles did you average each day?

The team earned 28 points. On the average, how many points per period did they score?

That runner wants to complete 8 miles in the next 48 minutes. What is the longest amount of time it can take to run each mile?

Multiple operations

Figure out how many feet or yards or meters you can swim (or run, or walk) in a certain number of seconds or minutes. For example, you can walk 2 miles in 30 minutes. At that rate, how far can you go in an hour?