Statistics worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.A company makes 50,000 light bulbs a day and wants to check how long they last before they fail. Testing a bulb to find out how long it lasts destroys it. Give a reason why the company should test a sample of bulbs rather than every bulb it makes.

2.A teacher records the number of pets owned by each of 25 pupils in a class; each pupil owns 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 pets. The teacher wants to show how many pupils own each number of pets. Write down the most suitable type of chart for this data, and give a reason for your answer.

3.A garden centre's sales, in thousands of pounds, at the end of each quarter last year were: quarter 1 — 18, quarter 2 — 34, quarter 3 — 30, quarter 4 — 22. Work out the increase in sales from quarter 1 to the quarter with the highest sales.

4.A school posts a questionnaire about school dinners to the families of all 200 pupils. Only 30 families send theirs back, and 27 of those 30 say they are unhappy with school dinners. Give a reason why this result may not represent all 200 families.

5.The seven members of Team A took 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 40 seconds to finish a task. The seven members of Team B took 20, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40 seconds. Tomás says that because the two teams have the same range, their times are spread out in the same way. Is Tomás right? Give a reason for your answer.

6.A frequency polygon for the mass, in kg, of 40 parcels at a delivery depot is drawn by plotting one point at the midpoint of each class, joined by straight lines: (5, 6), (15, 10), (25, 16), (35, 6), (45, 2). Every class has a width of 10 kg. Write down the modal class.

7.Work out the median of these six numbers: 13, 21, 22, 36, 37, 47

8.A study found that people who drink more coffee tend to concentrate better at work. A coffee company says that this shows that drinking coffee improves concentration. Give the reason why this conclusion cannot be drawn.

9.On a scatter graph the horizontal axis shows height in centimetres and the vertical axis shows mass in kilograms. One point is plotted at (170, 65). Write down the height and the mass of that person.

10.A netball team scored 50, 83 and 68 points in three matches. Work out the mean number of points scored.

11.A scatter graph has 50 points. Most of them lie close to a rising line of best fit, but two of them lie a long way from that line. Write down how those two points should be treated.

12.A two-way table records whether each of the 30 pupils in a class passed maths and whether they passed science. 18 pupils passed maths, 12 pupils passed science and 8 pupils passed both. Work out how many pupils passed at least one of the two subjects.

13.The mean of three numbers is 50. A fourth number, 100, is added to the set. Work out the mean of the four numbers.

14.A shop records the colour of every car that uses its car park one Tuesday. Its frequency table reads: black 44, silver 37, blue 26, red 18, white 12. Write down the frequency of black cars.

15.The mean of 5 numbers is 8. Work out the total of the 5 numbers.