Statistics worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.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.

2.A pictogram shows the number of cars sold by a garage in Plymouth each month, where each whole car symbol represents 8 cars sold and a half symbol represents 4 cars. March shows 3 whole symbols and one half symbol. Work out how many cars were sold in March.

3.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.

4.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.

5.A scatter graph of the number of ice creams sold at a seaside kiosk in Bournemouth and the number of sunburn cases treated at a nearby pharmacy, recorded on the same 30 days, shows strong positive correlation. Which statement about this correlation is correct?

6.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.

7.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.

8.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.

9.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.

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.In a random sample of 40 pupils at a school, 6 are left-handed. The school has 900 pupils. Work out an estimate for the number of left-handed pupils in the school.

12.Write down what a scatter graph is used to show.

13.The masses of eight school bags, in kilograms, are 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 11. Work out the median mass.

14.On a scatter graph of the arm span and the height of some pupils, the points rise from left to right. Write down the type of correlation this shows.

15.Write down the statement that correctly describes the difference between correlation and causation.