Tell your partner a number connected to you or your company and see if they can ask a question to which that is an answer
How would the questions for the following answers start?
six thousand seven hundred and five
two hundred and twelve litres
sixty three point five kilometres
seven stone three
seven and a half hours
three point six nine centimetres
nineteen ninety seven
eight pounds ninety nine
twenty two percent
Business and financial trivia (numbers review)
Student A
Choose one of the facts below, change it into a question and ask your partner to guess the number. Tell them if it should be much much/ much/ quite a lot/ a little/ a tiny bit more or less until they get exactly the right figure.
In nineteen eighty seven, American Airlines saved forty thousand dollars by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
The biggest white collar crime ever was two point six billion dollars over ten years, lost by a Japanese copper trader.
The longest ever queue at a drive in restaurant was seven miles (about eleven kilometres), at the opening day of McDonald’s in Kuwait City in nineteen ninety four.
The newspaper with the highest daily circulation in the world is the Yomiuri Shimbun. In January two thousand and two it sold fourteen million three hundred and twenty three thousand seven hundred and eighty one copies a day.
The Oedo line in Tokyo is the most expensive underground railway line ever built. It cost one point four trillion yen.
The largest antitrust penalty ever was the one hundred and ten million dollars for price fixing.
The largest ever daily drop in the Dow Index was five hundred and fifty four point two six points (twenty two point six percent) on the twenty seventh of October nineteen ninety seven
There are four hundred thousand vending machines in Tokyo.
The average bank teller in the USA loses about two hundred and fifty dollars in cash every year.
The VW Beetle sold only sold three hundred and thirty cars in its first year on sale in the US. Liquid Paper sold only one thousand two hundred bottles in its first year on the market. Only five hundred and thirty two sets of the board game Scrabble were sold in its first year.
Business and financial trivia (numbers review)
Student B
Choose one of the facts below, change it into a question and ask your partner to guess the number. Tell them if it should be much much/ much/ quite a lot/ a little/ a tiny bit more or less until they get exactly the right figure.
The starting capital of Apple Computers was one thousand three hundred dollars on the third of January nineteen seventy seven. The founders raised the money by selling a VW van and a scientific calculator.
An American dime has a hundred and eighteen ridges around the edge.
The highest ever price per share was one hundred and sixty seven point nine million Japanese Yen (approximately one million five hundred and twelve thousand five hundred dollars) for one share of Yahoo Japan, on February twenty two two thousand.
The rates of income tax in Bahrain and Qatar are nought percent.
Two thirds of all executives in the USA will change jobs in the next 36 months
A third of the world’s workforce will change jobs in the next 24 months
The 15km Tokyo Wan Aqualine bridge/ tunnel linking Kanagawa and Chiba cost half a billion pounds per kilometre
Adults in America spend an average of a hundred and forty five point six hours a year selecting clothes. They spend nine point one hours a year planning their retirement.
One out of ten secretaries in the USA say they have been romantically involved with their boss. Only a quarter of these secretaries said that this romance had a negative impact on their careers. One of every eight boss-secretary romances in America ends in marriage.
Executives spend one hundred and eight minutes each day reading and sending e-mail
Without looking back at the previous worksheets, try to pronounce the numbers below with your partner. There may be more than one way of saying some of them.
Zero
0%
Big numbers
$1,300 118
330 1,200
532 $250
108 minutes
Very big numbers
$40,000 167,900,000
$1,512,500 500,000,000 pounds
$2,600,000,000 14,323,781
1,400,000,000,000 yen $110,000,000
400,000
Decimals
9.1 22.6 %
145.6 hours 554.26 points
Fractions
¼ 1/3
2/3 1/10
1/8
Dates
1994 2/22/2000
3/ 1/ 1977 27/10/ 1997
Imperial measurements
7 miles in kilometres
Look back at your worksheets to check your answers.
When do we use zero, oh and nought?
Where do we put “and” into large numbers in British English?
What are the differences between dates in British English and dates in American English?
What other Imperial measurements do you know? How can you convert them into decimal measurements?
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PDF for easy saving and printing: BusinessTriviaNumbersReview
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