Questions — Edexcel S3 (332 questions)

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Edexcel S3 2008 June Q4
11 marks Standard +0.8
  1. The weights of adult men are normally distributed with a mean of 84 kg and a standard deviation of 11 kg .
    1. Find the probability that the total weight of 4 randomly chosen adult men is less than 350 kg .
    The weights of adult women are normally distributed with a mean of 62 kg and a standard deviation of 10 kg .
  2. Find the probability that the weight of a randomly chosen adult man is less than one and a half times the weight of a randomly chosen adult woman.
Edexcel S3 2008 June Q5
10 marks Easy -1.2
  1. A researcher is hired by a cleaning company to survey the opinions of employees on a proposed pension scheme. The company employs 55 managers and 495 cleaners.
To collect data the researcher decides to give a questionnaire to the first 50 cleaners to leave at the end of the day.
  1. Give 2 reasons why this method is likely to produce biased results.
  2. Explain briefly how the researcher could select a sample of 50 employees using
    1. a systematic sample,
    2. a stratified sample. Using the random number tables in the formulae book, and starting with the top left hand corner (8) and working across, 50 random numbers between 1 and 550 inclusive were selected. The first two suitable numbers are 384 and 100 .
  3. Find the next two suitable numbers.
Edexcel S3 2008 June Q6
13 marks Standard +0.3
  1. Ten cuttings were taken from each of 100 randomly selected garden plants. The numbers of cuttings that did not grow were recorded.
The results are as follows
No. of cuttings
which did
not grow
012345678,9 or 10
Frequency11213020123210
  1. Show that the probability of a randomly selected cutting, from this sample, not growing is 0.223 A gardener believes that a binomial distribution might provide a good model for the number of cuttings, out of 10 , that do not grow. He uses a binomial distribution, with the probability 0.2 of a cutting not growing. The calculated expected frequencies are as follows
    No. of cuttings which did
    not grow
    		012345 or more
    Expected frequency\(r\)26.84\(s\)20.138.81\(t\)
  2. Find the values of \(r , s\) and \(t\).
  3. State clearly the hypotheses required to test whether or not this binomial distribution is a suitable model for these data. The test statistic for the test is 4.17 and the number of degrees of freedom used is 4 .
  4. Explain fully why there are 4 degrees of freedom.
  5. Stating clearly the critical value used, carry out the test using a \(5 \%\) level of significance.
Edexcel S3 2008 June Q7
8 marks Standard +0.3
  1. A sociologist is studying how much junk food teenagers eat. A random sample of 100 female teenagers and an independent random sample of 200 male teenagers were asked to estimate what their weekly expenditure on junk food was. The results are summarised below.
\(n\)means.d.
Female teenagers100\(\pounds 5.48\)\(\pounds 3.62\)
Male teenagers200\(\pounds 6.86\)\(\pounds 4.51\)
  1. Using a 5\% significance level, test whether or not there is a difference in the mean amounts spent on junk food by male teenagers and female teenagers. State your hypotheses clearly.
  2. Explain briefly the importance of the central limit theorem in this problem.
Edexcel S3 2010 June Q3
10 marks Moderate -0.3
3. A woodwork teacher measures the width, \(w \mathrm {~mm}\), of a board. The measured width, \(X \mathrm {~mm}\), is normally distributed with mean \(w \mathrm {~mm}\) and standard deviation 0.5 mm .
  1. Find the probability that \(X\) is within 0.6 mm of \(w\). The same board is measured 16 times and the results are recorded.
  2. Find the probability that the mean of these results is within 0.3 mm of \(w\). Given that the mean of these 16 measurements is 35.6 mm ,
  3. find a \(98 \%\) confidence interval for \(w\).
Edexcel S3 2010 June Q4
10 marks Standard +0.3
  1. A researcher claims that, at a river bend, the water gradually gets deeper as the distance from the inner bank increases. He measures the distance from the inner bank, \(b \mathrm {~cm}\), and the depth of a river, \(s \mathrm {~cm}\), at seven positions. The results are shown in the table below.
Position\(A\)\(B\)\(C\)\(D\)\(E\)\(F\)\(G\)
Distance from
inner bank \(b \mathrm {~cm}\)
100200300400500600700
Depth
\(s \mathrm {~cm}\)
60758576110120104
  1. Calculate Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between \(b\) and \(s\).
  2. Stating your hypotheses clearly, test whether or not the data provides support for the researcher's claim. Use a \(1 \%\) level of significance.
Edexcel S3 2010 June Q5
10 marks Standard +0.3
  1. A random sample of 100 people were asked if their finances were worse, the same or better than this time last year. The sample was split according to their annual income and the results are shown in the table below.
Annual income FinancesWorseSameBetter
Under \(\pounds 15000\)14119
\(\pounds 15000\) and above172029
Test, at the \(5 \%\) level of significance, whether or not the relative state of their finances is independent of their income range. State your hypotheses and show your working clearly.
Edexcel S3 2010 June Q6
12 marks Standard +0.8
  1. A total of 228 items are collected from an archaeological site. The distance from the centre of the site is recorded for each item. The results are summarised in the table below.
Distance from the
centre of the site \(( \mathrm { m } )\)
\(0 - 1\)\(1 - 2\)\(2 - 4\)\(4 - 6\)\(6 - 9\)\(9 - 12\)
Number of items221544375258
Test, at the \(5 \%\) level of significance, whether or not the data can be modelled by a continuous uniform distribution. State your hypotheses clearly.
Edexcel S3 2010 June Q7
17 marks Moderate -0.3
  1. A large company surveyed its staff to investigate the awareness of company policy. The company employs 6000 full time staff and 4000 part time staff.
    1. Describe how a stratified sample of 200 staff could be taken.
    2. Explain an advantage of using a stratified sample rather than a simple random sample.
    A random sample of 80 full time staff and an independent random sample of 80 part time staff were given a test of policy awareness. The results are summarised in the table below.
    Mean score \(( \bar { x } )\)
    Variance of
    scores \(\left( s ^ { 2 } \right)\)
    Full time staff5221
    Part time staff5019
  2. Stating your hypotheses clearly, test, at the \(1 \%\) level of significance, whether or not the mean policy awareness scores for full time and part time staff are different.
  3. Explain the significance of the Central Limit Theorem to the test in part (c).
  4. State an assumption you have made in carrying out the test in part (c). After all the staff had completed a training course the 80 full time staff and the 80 part time staff were given another test of policy awareness. The value of the test statistic \(z\) was 2.53
  5. Comment on the awareness of company policy for the full time and part time staff in light of this result. Use a \(1 \%\) level of significance.
  6. Interpret your answers to part (c) and part (f).
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q1
12 marks Standard +0.3
  1. Interviews for a job are carried out by two managers. Candidates are given a score by each manager and the results for a random sample of 8 candidates are shown in the table below.
Candidate\(A\)\(B\)\(C\)\(D\)\(E\)\(F\)\(G\)\(H\)
Manager \(X\)6256875465151210
Manager \(Y\)5447715049253044
  1. Calculate Spearman's rank correlation coefficient for these data.
  2. Test, at the \(5 \%\) level of significance, whether there is agreement between the rankings awarded by each manager. State your hypotheses clearly. Manager \(Y\) later discovered he had miscopied his score for candidate \(D\) and it should be 54 .
  3. Without carrying out any further calculations, explain how you would calculate Spearman's rank correlation in this case.
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q2
8 marks Moderate -0.8
2. A lake contains 3 species of fish. There are estimated to be 1400 trout, 600 bass and 450 pike in the lake. A survey of the health of the fish in the lake is carried out and a sample of 30 fish is chosen.
  1. Give a reason why stratified random sampling cannot be used.
  2. State an appropriate sampling method for the survey.
  3. Give one advantage and one disadvantage of this sampling method.
  4. Explain how this sampling method could be used to select the sample of 30 fish. You must show your working.
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q3
11 marks Standard +0.3
3. (a) Explain what you understand by the Central Limit Theorem. A garage services hire cars on behalf of a hire company. The garage knows that the lifetime of the brake pads has a standard deviation of 5000 miles. The garage records the lifetimes, \(x\) miles, of the brake pads it has replaced. The garage takes a random sample of 100 brake pads and finds that \(\sum x = 1740000\) (b) Find a 95\% confidence interval for the mean lifetime of a brake pad.
(c) Explain the relevance of the Central Limit Theorem in part (b). Brake pads are made to be changed every 20000 miles on average.
The hire car company complain that the garage is changing the brake pads too soon.
(d) Comment on the hire company's complaint. Give a reason for your answer.
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q4
10 marks Standard +0.3
  1. Two breeds of chicken are surveyed to measure their egg yield. The results are shown in the table below.
\backslashbox{Breed}{Egg yield}LowMediumHigh
Leghorn225226
Cornish14324
Showing each stage of your working clearly, test, at the \(5 \%\) significance level, whether or not there is an association between egg yield and breed of chicken. State your hypotheses clearly.
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q5
9 marks Standard +0.3
5. Mr Alan and Ms Burns are two Mathematics teachers teaching mixed ability groups of students in a large college. At the end of the college year all students took the same examination. A random sample of 29 of Mr Alan's students and a random sample of 26 of Ms Burns' students are chosen. The results are summarised in the table below.
Sample Size, \(n\)Mean, \(\bar { x }\)Standard Deviation, \(s\)
Mr Alan298010
Ms Burns267415
  1. Stating your hypotheses clearly, test, at the \(10 \%\) level of significance whether there is evidence that there is a difference in the mean scores of their students. Ms Burns thinks the comparison was unfair as the examination was set by Mr Alan. She looks up a different set of examination results for these students and, although Mr Alan's sample has a higher mean, she calculates the test statistic for this new set of results to be 1.6 However, Mr Alan now claims that the mean marks of his students are higher than the mean marks of Ms Burns' students.
  2. Test Mr Alan's claim, stating the hypotheses and critical values you would use. Use a \(10 \%\) level of significance.
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q6
14 marks Standard +0.3
6. A total of 100 random samples of 6 items are selected from a production line in a factory and the number of defective items in each sample is recorded. The results are summarised in the table below.
Number of
defective
items
0123456
Number of
samples
616202317108
  1. Show that the mean number of defective items per sample is 2.91 A factory manager suggests that the data can be modelled by a binomial distribution with \(n = 6\). He uses the mean from the sample above and calculates expected frequencies as shown in the table below.
    Number of
    defective
    items
    		0123456
    Expected
    frequency
    		1.8710.5424.82\(a\)22.018.29\(b\)
  2. Calculate the value of \(a\) and the value of \(b\) giving your answers to 2 decimal places.
  3. Test, at the \(5 \%\) level, whether or not the binomial distribution is a suitable model for the number of defective items in samples of 6 items. State your hypotheses clearly.
Edexcel S3 2012 June Q7
11 marks Standard +0.8
7. The heights, in cm, of the male employees in a large company follow a normal distribution with mean 177 and standard deviation 5 The heights, in cm, of the female employees follow a normal distribution with mean 163 and standard deviation 4 A male employee and a female employee are chosen at random.
  1. Find the probability that the male employee is taller than the female employee. Six male employees and four female employees are chosen at random.
  2. Find the probability that their total height is less than 17 m .
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q1
3 marks Easy -1.8
  1. A gym club has 400 members of which 300 are males.
Explain clearly how a stratified sample of size 60 could be taken.
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q2
5 marks Standard +0.3
2. A random sample of size \(n\) is to be taken from a population that is normally distributed with mean 40 and standard deviation 3 . Find the minimum sample size such that the probability of the sample mean being greater than 42 is less than \(5 \%\).
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q3
13 marks Standard +0.3
3. The table below shows the population and the number of council employees for different towns and villages.
Town or villagePopulationNumber of council employees
A21110
B3562
C104712
D246321
E489216
F647925
G657167
H657345
I984548
\(J\)1478434
  1. Find, to 3 decimal places, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between the population and the number of council employees.
  2. Use your value of Spearman's rank correlation coefficient to test for evidence of a positive correlation between the population and the number of council employees. Use a \(2.5 \%\) significance level. State your hypotheses clearly. It is suggested that a product moment correlation coefficient would be a more suitable calculation in this case. The product moment correlation coefficient for these data is 0.627 to 3 decimal places.
  3. Use the value of the product moment correlation coefficient to test for evidence of a positive correlation between the population and the number of council employees. Use a \(2.5 \%\) significance level.
  4. Interpret and comment on your results from part(b) and part(c).
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q4
12 marks Standard +0.3
  1. John thinks that a person's eye colour is related to their hair colour. He takes a random sample of 600 people and records their eye and hair colours. The results are shown in Table 1.
\begin{table}[h]
\multirow{2}{*}{}Hair colour
BlackBrownRedBlondeTotal
\multirow{5}{*}{Eye colour}Brown451251558243
Blue34901058192
Hazel20381626100
Green62972365
Total10528248165600
\captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Table 1}
\end{table} John carries out a \(\chi ^ { 2 }\) test in order to test whether eye colour and hair colour are related. He calculates the expected frequencies shown in Table 2. \begin{table}[h]
\multirow{2}{*}{}Hair colour
BlackBrownRedBlonde
\multirow{4}{*}{Eye colour}Brown42.5114.219.466.8
Blue33.690.215.452.8
Hazel17.547827.5
Green11.430.65.217.9
\captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Table 2}
\end{table}
  1. Show how the value 47 in Table 2 has been calculated.
  2. Write down the number of degrees of freedom John should use in this \(\chi ^ { 2 }\) test. Given that the value of the \(\chi ^ { 2 }\) statistic is 20.6 , to 3 significant figures,
  3. find the smallest value of \(\alpha\) for which the null hypothesis will be rejected at the \(\alpha \%\) level of significance.
  4. Use the data from Table 1 to test at the \(5 \%\) level of significance whether or not the proportions of people in the population with black, brown, red and blonde hair are in the ratio 2:6:1:3 State your hypotheses clearly.
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q5
9 marks Standard +0.3
  1. A manufacturer produces circular discs with diameter \(D \mathrm {~mm}\), such that \(D \sim \mathrm {~N} \left( \mu , \sigma ^ { 2 } \right)\). A random sample of discs is taken and, using tables of the normal distribution, a \(90 \%\) confidence interval for \(\mu\) is found to be
    (118.8, 121.2)
    1. Find a 98\% confidence interval for \(\mu\).
    2. Hence write down a 98\% confidence interval for the circumference of the discs.
    Using three different random samples, three \(98 \%\) confidence intervals for \(\mu\) are to be found.
  2. Calculate the probability that all the intervals will contain \(\mu\).
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q6
7 marks Challenging +1.2
6. The continuous random variable \(X\) is uniformly distributed over the interval $$[ a - 1 , a + 5 ]$$ where \(a\) is a constant.
Fifty observations of \(X\) are taken, giving a sample mean of 17.2
  1. Use the Central Limit Theorem to find an approximate distribution for \(\bar { X }\).
  2. Hence find a 95\% confidence interval for \(a\).
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q7
9 marks Standard +0.3
7. A farmer monitored the amount of lead in soil in a field next to a factory. He took 100 samples of soil, randomly selected from different parts of the field, and found the mean weight of lead to be \(67 \mathrm { mg } / \mathrm { kg }\) with standard deviation \(25 \mathrm { mg } / \mathrm { kg }\).
After the factory closed, the farmer took 150 samples of soil, randomly selected from different parts of the field, and found the mean weight of lead to be \(60 \mathrm { mg } / \mathrm { kg }\) with standard deviation \(10 \mathrm { mg } / \mathrm { kg }\).
  1. Test at the \(5 \%\) level of significance whether or not the mean weight of lead in the soil decreased after the factory closed. State your hypotheses clearly.
  2. Explain the significance of the Central Limit Theorem to the test in part(a).
  3. State an assumption you have made to carry out this test.
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q8
17 marks Standard +0.8
8. A farmer supplies both duck eggs and chicken eggs. The weights of duck eggs, \(D\) grams, and chicken eggs, \(C\) grams, are such that $$D \sim \mathrm {~N} \left( 54,1.2 ^ { 2 } \right) \text { and } C \sim \mathrm {~N} \left( 44,0.8 ^ { 2 } \right)$$
  1. Find the probability that the weights of 2 randomly selected duck eggs will differ by more than 3 g .
  2. Find the probability that the weight of a randomly selected chicken egg is less than \(\frac { 4 } { 5 }\) of the weight of a randomly selected duck egg. Eggs are packed in boxes which contain either 6 randomly selected duck eggs or 6 randomly selected chicken eggs. The weight of an empty box has distribution \(\mathrm { N } \left( 28 , \sqrt { 5 } ^ { 2 } \right)\).
  3. Find the probability that a full box of duck eggs weighs at least 50 g more than a full box of chicken eggs.
Edexcel S3 2013 June Q1
10 marks Moderate -0.3
  1. A doctor takes a random sample of 100 patients and measures their intake of saturated fats in their food and the level of cholesterol in their blood. The results are summarised in the table below.
\backslashbox{Intake of saturated fats}{Cholesterol level}HighLow
High128
Low2654
Using a \(5 \%\) level of significance, test whether or not there is an association between cholesterol level and intake of saturated fats. State your hypotheses and show your working clearly.