- (a) Explain briefly what you understand by a statistical model.
(2 marks)
A zoologist is analysing data on the weights of adult female otters.
(b) Name a distribution that you think might be suitable for modelling such data.
(1 mark)
(c) Describe two features that you would expect to find in the distribution of the weights of adult female otters and that led to your choice in part (b).
(2 marks)
(d) Why might your choice in part (b) not be suitable for modelling the weights of all adult otters?
(1 mark) - For a geography project a student studied weather records kept by her school since 1993. To see if there was any evidence of global warming she worked out the mean temperature in degrees Celsius at noon for the month of June in each year.
Her results are shown in the table below.
| Year | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 |
| Mean temperature | | \(\left( { } ^ { \circ } \mathrm { C } \right)\) |
| 21.9 | 24.1 | 20.7 | 23.0 | 24.2 | 22.1 | 22.6 | 23.9 |