I was just looking at a recent paper, you're right the foundation paper is pretty good in that sense: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-43651F-QP-NOV13.

I was just looking at a recent paper, you're right the foundation paper is pretty good in that sense: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-43651F-QP-NOV13.PDF http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-43651F-QP-NOV13.PDF There is still some geometry which I think is a bit futile (questions 12 and 13, particularly memorizing the terminology about 'alternating angles' and so on), and perhaps a bit too much emphasis on specific ways of representing data (the pictogram and the stem and leaf chart). But in general the emphasis on calculating costs, amounts, sizes, areas, percentages etc is, as you say, about functional numeracy.