Edexcel S1 2013 June — Question 4

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModuleS1 (Statistics 1)
Year2013
SessionJune
TopicData representation
TypeEstimate mean and standard deviation from frequency table

4. The following table summarises the times, \(t\) minutes to the nearest minute, recorded for a group of students to complete an exam.
Time (minutes) \(t\)\(11 - 20\)\(21 - 25\)\(26 - 30\)\(31 - 35\)\(36 - 45\)\(46 - 60\)
Number of students f628816131110
$$\text { [You may use } \sum \mathrm { f } t ^ { 2 } = 134281.25 \text { ] }$$
  1. Estimate the mean and standard deviation of these data.
  2. Use linear interpolation to estimate the value of the median.
  3. Show that the estimated value of the lower quartile is 18.6 to 3 significant figures.
  4. Estimate the interquartile range of this distribution.
  5. Give a reason why the mean and standard deviation are not the most appropriate summary statistics to use with these data. The person timing the exam made an error and each student actually took 5 minutes less than the times recorded above. The table below summarises the actual times.
    Time (minutes) \(t\)\(6 - 15\)\(16 - 20\)\(21 - 25\)\(26 - 30\)\(31 - 40\)\(41 - 55\)
    Number of students f628816131110
  6. Without further calculations, explain the effect this would have on each of the estimates found in parts (a), (b), (c) and (d).