Statistics worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.A pupil writes this question for a school survey: “Do you agree that learning matters and that we should be set more homework?” Write down what is wrong with the survey question.

2.A town council wants to find out about the eating habits of the people who live in the town. It asks only the members of a local sports club. Give a reason why this sample is biased.

3.Five friends have heights, in cm, of 150, 152, 155, 158 and 160. A sixth friend, with a height of 170 cm, joins the group. Write down what happens to the mean and the range of the heights once this sixth friend is included.

4.A scatter graph shows the number of pages, x, in a chapter and the time, y minutes, a pupil took to read it, for 15 chapters. The line of best fit has equation y = 2x + 3. Use the line of best fit to estimate the time taken to read a chapter of 10 pages.

5.A school has 1,000 pupils. A student wants to estimate how many of them walk to school, so she asks 8 pupils in her own class. She says her sample is large enough to give a reliable estimate for the whole school. Is she right? Give a reason for your answer.

6.A café in Preston records the type of drink ordered by 20 customers one morning: tea 8, coffee 7, hot chocolate 4 and juice 1. Write down the modal drink.

7.A school has 1,500 pupils. The head teacher takes a random sample of 150 of them from the school register and asks how long they spend on homework. Rory says the sample is too small for the result to mean anything. Is Rory right? Give a reason for your answer.

8.A two-way table records whether each of 50 pupils in Year 10 or Year 11 at a school walks to school or is driven. 28 of the 50 pupils are in Year 10. In total, 22 of the 50 pupils walk to school. Of the Year 10 pupils, 15 walk to school. Work out how many Year 11 pupils are driven to school.

9.A shop recorded the number of books it sold on five days: 100, 40, 70, 20, 60. Work out the range of the numbers of books sold.

10.The weekly wages of the five people who work at a small garage in Norwich are £420, £440, £460, £480 and £1,500. Write down which average better describes a typical wage at this garage, and give a reason for your answer.

11.The mean mass of four parcels is 17 kg. Three of the parcels have masses 12 kg, 16 kg and 18 kg. Work out the mass of the fourth parcel.

12.The mean of the four numbers 10, 15, 20 and x is 18. Work out the value of x.

13.A random sample of 50 pupils at a school were asked whether they prefer sport to music. 30 of the 50 pupils said they prefer sport. The school has 500 pupils altogether. Work out an estimate for the number of the 500 pupils who prefer sport.

14.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.

15.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.