In this activity, students have to graph six circles. The graph paper is a plan of a room superimposed on a coordinate grid. Once the six circles have been drawn correctly, only one of the six people will be able to escape the room and only two of the exits will be available to that person. Students have to find which person can escape and which two exits are safe.

There are two versions of the game included in this download – an easier and a harder version. In the harder version, each circle is not yet written in standard form. In order to plot the circles accurately they must first be converted to standard form by completing the square. In the easier version, all the circles are already written in standard form. Both versions have the same answer, so can be used interchangeably. For example, half the class could be given the easier version and half the class the harder version.

The game can also be played in two different ways. Either, all six circles can all be given at once to each player, and then it simply becomes a race to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

Alternatively, each player is given only one of the six circles and they have to trade with other players to find the remaining equations in an effort to solve the problem. In this scenario, I usually try to have all students playing the same version of the game (easier or harder).

This activity typically takes 15-20 minutes and is a great review activity. The questions feature a variety of circles, including horizontal and vertical translations, and circles with differing radii.

The zip file contains a pdf of the activity, an accompanying PowerPoint and the answers.

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Please note: this resource is for use by one teacher only. Additional teachers must purchase their own license.