Printable · GCSE Foundation · ages 14-16
Statistics worksheet — GCSE Foundation
Fifteen questions across the statistics statements at Foundation tier. Choose the non-calculator filter to rehearse Paper 1, which counts for a third of the marks.
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Statistics worksheet — GCSE Foundation
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- 1.The mean of the numbers x, 20 and 30 is equal to the mean of the numbers 15 and 25. Work out the value of x.
- 2.A charity shop in Bath holds 2,000 books. Volunteer A checks a random sample of 50 books and finds 35 paperbacks. Volunteer B checks a different random sample of 50 books and finds 31 paperbacks. Work out the estimate each sample gives for the whole stock, and write down what the shop should do next.
- 3.A café sold 10 sandwiches on each of four days: 10, 10, 10, 10. Work out the range of the numbers sold.
- 4.A dual bar chart shows how many boys and how many girls are in a class. The bar for boys stands at 14 and the bar for girls stands at 16. Work out how many pupils are in the class altogether.
- 5.A dual bar chart shows the number of hours of rain recorded in Leeds and in Bristol on each of four days. Leeds: Monday 3 hours, Tuesday 5 hours, Wednesday 2 hours, Thursday 4 hours. Bristol: Monday 4 hours, Tuesday 4 hours, Wednesday 6 hours, Thursday 2 hours. Work out the greatest amount, in hours, by which Bristol's rainfall exceeded Leeds's rainfall on a single day.
- 6.Amelia's mean mark over four tests is 29. Her first three marks are 31, 26 and 26. Work out her fourth mark.
- 7.Two classes sat the same test. The 30 pupils in Class A had a mean mark of 72. The 20 pupils in Class B had a mean mark of 82. Work out the mean mark of all 50 pupils.
- 8.A table shows the time each of four pupils took to run 100 m: Oliver 12 seconds, Grace 15 seconds, Ethan 10 seconds, Freya 14 seconds. Write down the name of the fastest runner and the time taken.
- 9.A pie chart of the favourite hobby of a group of pupils has three sectors: reading 50%, sport 25% and music 25%. Write down, as a fraction in its simplest form, the share of the pie chart taken up by the reading sector.
- 10.A pie chart is divided into 10 equal sectors. 6 of those sectors stand for the people who chose purple. Altogether 120 people were asked. Work out how many of them chose purple.
- 11.Seven pupils were asked how many books they had read last month. Their answers were 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 5, 3. Write down the mode.
- 12.A garden centre records its total sales, in pounds, at the end of each of the twelve months of one year, to see how sales change over time. Write down the most suitable type of chart to show this time series data.
- 13.A pie chart shows the favourite sport of the 40 pupils in a class: football 50%, netball 25%, tennis 15% and swimming 10%. Work out how many pupils chose football.
- 14.A company found that the higher the price it charged for a product, the lower the satisfaction score its customers gave. The price and the satisfaction score are plotted on a scatter graph. Describe the line of best fit that would be drawn on that graph.
- 15.The table shows the times, t minutes, that 30 pupils took to walk to school. 0 < t ≤ 10: 8 pupils. 10 < t ≤ 20: 12 pupils. 20 < t ≤ 30: 6 pupils. 30 < t ≤ 40: 4 pupils. Write down which average can be given exactly from this table, and give a reason for your answer.
Answer key
- (c) 10 — Method: work out the mean that can be found straight away, then use total = mean × number of values on the group of three to find the missing number. Working: the mean of 15 and 25 is (15 + 25) ÷ 2 = 40 ÷ 2 = 20, so the group of three must also have a mean of 20; three numbers with a mean of 20 have a total of 20 × 3 = 60, and 20 + 30 = 50 of that total is already accounted for, so x = 60 − 50 = 10. Answer: 10, and checking, (10 + 20 + 30) ÷ 3 = 20. The distractors: 20 comes from working out the mean the two groups share and writing that down as x; −10 comes from dividing the group of three by 2 instead of by 3, which gives x + 50 = 40; 70 comes from reading the total 15 + 25 = 40 as the mean of the pair, which sets the target total at 120 and leaves x = 70.
- (a) 1,400 and 1,240, so combine the samples for one estimate — Method: scale each sample up to the whole stock, then use the fact that a larger sample gives a more reliable estimate than a smaller one. Working: the first sample gives 35 ÷ 50 = 0.7 and 0.7 × 2,000 = 1,400 paperbacks; the second gives 31 ÷ 50 = 0.62 and 0.62 × 2,000 = 1,240 paperbacks. Two random samples of the same size are expected to differ a little, so neither estimate is wrong. Putting the two together gives 35 + 31 = 66 paperbacks in 100 books, and 66 ÷ 100 = 0.66 with 0.66 × 2,000 = 1,320, an estimate resting on twice as many books as either volunteer checked. Answer: 1,400 and 1,240, so combine the samples for one estimate. The distractors: keeping 1,400 because it is larger picks an estimate by its size, when both samples held 50 books and neither has a stronger claim; saying a volunteer must have miscounted assumes two random samples ought to agree exactly, which is precisely what random sampling does not promise; 1,750 and 1,550 come from 35 × 50 = 1,750 and 31 × 50 = 1,550, multiplying each count by the size of the sample instead of scaling by 2,000 ÷ 50.
- (d) 0 — Method: the range is the largest value minus the smallest value, whatever those two values turn out to be. Working: every value is 10, so the largest value is 10 and the smallest value is 10 as well, and the range is 10 − 10 = 0. Answer: 0 — a range of nothing says the data do not vary at all. The distractors: 10 comes from writing down the repeated value itself instead of the difference between the extremes; 20 comes from adding the largest and the smallest, 10 + 10, instead of subtracting; 40 comes from adding all four values, which gives the total sold and not a measure of spread.
- (d) 30 — Method: on a dual bar chart each bar is a separate frequency, so a total for the whole class is found by combining the two frequencies the bars show. Working: the bars show 14 boys and 16 girls, and 14 + 16 = 30. Answer: 30 pupils, a count of pupils in the class. The distractors: 32 comes from doubling the taller bar, 16 + 16, as though the two bars were equal; 28 comes from doubling the shorter bar, 14 + 14, in the same way; 2 comes from finding the difference between the two bars, 16 − 14, which answers how many more girls there are rather than how many pupils there are.
- (b) 4 — The difference, Bristol minus Leeds, on each day is: Monday 4 − 3 = 1, Tuesday 4 − 5 = −1, Wednesday 6 − 2 = 4, Thursday 2 − 4 = −2. The greatest amount by which Bristol exceeded Leeds is 4 hours, on Wednesday. Choosing 1 takes Monday's smaller positive difference instead of the greatest one. Choosing 2 takes the size of Thursday's difference, but that is the amount by which Leeds exceeded Bristol, the opposite direction to the one asked for. Choosing 6 takes Bristol's raw figure on Wednesday without subtracting Leeds's 2 hours first.
- (c) 33 — Method: multiply the mean by the number of tests to get the total marks, then subtract the marks that are already known. Working: four tests with a mean of 29 give a total of 29 × 4 = 116 marks; the first three marks total 31 + 26 + 26 = 83; so the fourth mark is 116 − 83 = 33. Answer: 33, and checking, (31 + 26 + 26 + 33) ÷ 4 = 116 ÷ 4 = 29. The distractors: 116 comes from stopping at the total for all four tests; 29 comes from assuming the missing mark must be the mean itself; 4 comes from multiplying the mean by 3, the number of marks given, leaving 87 − 83 = 4.
- (c) 76 marks — Method: a mean of means only works when the groups are the same size, so rebuild each class's total mark, add the totals and divide by the number of pupils altogether. Working: Class A scored 30 × 72 = 2160 marks and Class B scored 20 × 82 = 1640 marks, giving 2160 + 1640 = 3800 marks between 50 pupils, so the overall mean is 3800 ÷ 50 = 76 marks. Answer: 76 marks. The distractors: 77 marks comes from averaging the two class means, (72 + 82) ÷ 2, which ignores the different class sizes; 78 marks comes from attaching each mean to the other class's size, (30 × 82 + 20 × 72) ÷ 50; 3800 marks comes from stopping at the combined total and never dividing by 50.
- (b) Ethan, 10 seconds — Method: over the same distance the fastest runner is the one who takes the least time, so the smallest time in the table is found first and the name is then read from the same row. Working: the four times are 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 10 seconds and 14 seconds; in order of size these are 10, 12, 14 and 15, so the least time is 10 seconds, and the row holding 10 seconds is the row for Ethan. Answer: Ethan, 10 seconds — the time is in seconds, and a smaller time means a faster runner. The distractors: Grace with 15 seconds comes from taking the largest number in the table to mean the fastest runner, which reverses the relationship between time and speed over a fixed distance; Oliver with 12 seconds comes from writing down the first row of the table without comparing the four times; Ethan with 15 seconds comes from identifying the right runner but then reading the time from a different row of the table.
- (d) 1/2 — Method: a percentage is turned into a fraction by writing it over 100 and then cancelling the fraction down to its simplest form. Working: the reading sector is 50% of the pie chart, so as a fraction it is 50/100; dividing the numerator and the denominator by 50 gives 1/2. Answer: 1/2 of the pie chart — a fraction of the chart, not a number of pupils. The distractors: 1/4 comes from reading the share of the sport sector, 25%, instead of the share of the reading sector; 1/3 comes from counting the three sectors and assuming that three sectors must each take a third of the chart, which is only true when the sectors are equal; 3/4 comes from adding the reading and sport sectors together, 50% + 25% = 75%, instead of taking the reading sector on its own.
- (c) 72 — Method: when a pie chart is divided into equal sectors, each sector stands for the same share of the people asked, so the fraction of the sectors that are shaded is also the fraction of the people. Working: 6 sectors out of 10 are purple, which is the fraction 6/10 of the whole pie chart; one tenth of the 120 people is 120 ÷ 10 = 12 people, so six tenths is 6 × 12 = 72 people. Answer: 72 people, a count of people rather than a number of sectors. The distractors: 48 comes from working with the 4 sectors that are not purple, 4 × 12, and so answering for the wrong part of the chart; 60 comes from turning the fraction 6/10 into 60% and then writing the 60 down as though it were a number of people; 6 comes from writing down the number of purple sectors instead of the number of people those sectors stand for.
- (c) 5 — Method: the mode is the value that occurs most often, so count how many times each different value appears and compare the counts. Working: 3 appears twice, 5 appears three times, 7 appears once and 8 appears once, so the highest frequency is three and the value carrying it is 5. Answer: 5. The distractors: 3 comes from writing down the frequency of the most common answer instead of the answer itself; 7 comes from taking the middle number of the list as it was written, which applies the median without ordering the data and without answering the question asked; 8 comes from picking the largest value, which confuses the mode with the maximum.
- (b) A line graph — Sales recorded at the end of each of the twelve months are time series data, and a line graph is the chart built to show how a value changes over time, with the points usually joined in order. A pie chart is for showing categorical data as shares of a whole, not a trend over time. A pictogram shows a frequency for separate categories using symbols, not a continuous trend. A scatter graph is for comparing two different variables against each other, not one variable over time.
- (b) 20 — Method: each sector of a pie chart stands for a percentage of the whole set of data, so the number of pupils in a sector is that percentage of the total number of pupils. Working: the football sector is 50% and the whole pie chart stands for all 40 pupils, so the number of pupils is 50% of 40 = 0.5 × 40 = 20. Answer: 20 pupils, which is a count of pupils rather than a percentage. The distractors: 10 comes from taking the netball sector, 25% of 40, instead of the football sector; 80 comes from doubling the 40 pupils instead of halving them, which is what multiplying by 50% would do the wrong way round; 40 comes from writing down the total number of pupils in the class and never applying the percentage at all.
- (a) A straight line sloping down from left to right — Method: a line of best fit is a straight line drawn to follow the trend of the points, so its slope is decided by the direction of the relationship between the two quantities. Working: as the price rises, the satisfaction score falls, so the points start high on the left of the graph and finish low on the right; the straight line that follows them therefore slopes downwards as the graph is read from left to right, which is the line of a negative correlation. Answer: a straight line sloping down from left to right. The distractors: a line sloping up comes from reading a falling relationship as a rising one; a horizontal line comes from expecting no correlation, since a horizontal line says the satisfaction score does not change as the price changes; a curve passing through every point comes from thinking a line of best fit has to touch all of the plotted points, when it is a single straight line drawn through the middle of them.
- (d) The modal class, as the class with most pupils is shown — Method: a grouped frequency table records how many values fall into each class, but not the values themselves, so any average that needs the individual times can only be estimated from it. Working: the four frequencies are 8, 12, 6 and 4, and 8 + 12 + 6 + 4 = 30, so every pupil is counted. The largest frequency is 12, which belongs to the class 10 < t ≤ 20, and that class can be written down exactly, because finding it needs nothing but the counts the table already gives. Answer: the modal class, as the class with most pupils is shown. The distractors: the mean is said to use all 30 times, but the table does not hold them; the usual method replaces each class by its midpoint, 5, 15, 25 and 35, which gives an estimate of the mean and not its true value; the median is said to be shown, but the table locates only the class holding the 15th and 16th times, which is 10 < t ≤ 20, without saying what either time was; the range is said to be shown, but 0 and 40 are the boundaries of the first and last classes, not the fastest and slowest times actually recorded.
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