Edexcel S1 2008 January — Question 2

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModuleS1 (Statistics 1)
Year2008
SessionJanuary
TopicMeasures of Location and Spread
TypeCalculate statistics from raw data

2. Cotinine is a chemical that is made by the body from nicotine which is found in cigarette smoke. A doctor tested the blood of 12 patients, who claimed to smoke a packet of cigarettes a day, for cotinine. The results, in appropriate units, are shown below.
Patient\(A\)\(B\)\(C\)\(D\)\(E\)\(F\)\(G\)\(H\)\(I\)\(J\)\(K\)\(L\)
Cotinine
level, \(X\)
160390169175125420171250210258186243
$$\text { [You may use } \sum x ^ { 2 } = 724 \text { 961] }$$
  1. Find the mean and standard deviation of the level of cotinine in a patient's blood.
  2. Find the median, upper and lower quartiles of these data. A doctor suspects that some of his patients have been smoking more than a packet of cigarettes per day. He decides to use \(\mathrm { Q } _ { 3 } + 1.5 \left( \mathrm { Q } _ { 3 } - \mathrm { Q } _ { 1 } \right)\) to determine if any of the cotinine results are far enough away from the upper quartile to be outliers.
  3. Identify which patient(s) may have been smoking more than a packet of cigarettes a day. Show your working clearly. Research suggests that cotinine levels in the blood form a skewed distribution.
    One measure of skewness is found using \(\frac { \left( Q _ { 1 } - 2 Q _ { 2 } + Q _ { 3 } \right) } { \left( Q _ { 3 } - Q _ { 1 } \right) }\).
  4. Evaluate this measure and describe the skewness of these data.