IB Maths AI SL Topic 4: Statistics and probability questions

Exam-style questions in the shape of Paper 1 and Paper 2, with full markschemes. Read the markscheme, or type, photograph or draw your answer and get it marked.

Question 1

Paper 2Easy6 marks

A city council wants to describe the repair times for 240 potholes repaired during April. It selects 12 repair records at random. For these 12 records, the lower quartile is 4 hours and the upper quartile is 8 hours. One recorded repair time is 18 hours.

(a)

State the population and the sample.

[2]
(b)

Calculate the interquartile range and determine whether the 18-hour repair time is an outlier.

[2]
(c)

The maintenance log confirms that this repair took 18 hours because a lane closure delayed the crew. State whether the value should be removed before describing the sample, giving a reason.

[2]

Question 2

Paper 2Easy5 marks

A school records the commute times of students travelling by two bus routes. Figure 1 shows box-and-whisker diagrams of the times, in minutes.

051015202530354045505560Route BRoute ACommute time (minutes)
(a)

Write down the median commute time for Route A.

[1]
(b)

Calculate the interquartile range of the commute times for Route B. Give your answer in minutes.

[2]
(c)

State which route’s commute times may be normally distributed. Give one feature of its box-and-whisker diagram to support your answer.

[2]

Question 3

Paper 2Easy5 marks

A delivery service compares the delivery times for two routes. The values below summarize the box-and-whisker plots for each route. All values are in minutes.

RouteLower whisker endLower quartileMedianUpper quartileUpper whisker end
A1218243036
B1015202840
(a)

Calculate the interquartile range for each route.

[2]
(b)

State which route has the higher median delivery time.

[1]
(c)

State which route’s delivery times may be normally distributed. Give a reason based on the symmetry of its box and whiskers.

[2]

Question 4

Paper 2Easy6 marks

A technician records the volume of water in a container as it is filled. Let tt be the time, in minutes, after filling begins, and let VV be the volume of water, in litres.

tt02468101214
VV1017273044466064
(a)

Use a GDC to calculate Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient, rr to three significant figures. Describe the direction and strength of the linear correlation.

[2]
(b)

Use a GDC to find the equation of the regression line of VV on tt giving its coefficients to four significant figures.

[1]
(c)

Use your regression line to estimate the volume of water after 9 minutes. Give your answer in litres to three significant figures.

[1]
(d)

Interpret the gradient and the vertical intercept of the regression line in this context.

[2]

Question 5

Paper 2Easy6 marks

A filling machine produces packets of dried fruit. The mass XX in grams, of a randomly selected packet is modelled by a normal distribution with mean 500500 g and standard deviation 44 g.

(a)

Sketch the normal curve for XX Label the horizontal axis with μ−σ\mu-\sigma μ\mu μ+σ\mu+\sigma and their corresponding masses.

[2]
(b)

Use your GDC to calculate the probability that a packet has a mass between 496496 g and 504504 g. Give your answer to four significant figures.

[2]
(c)

Use your GDC to find the mass xx such that 90%90\% of packets have a mass less than xx Give your answer to the nearest 0.10.1 g.

[2]

Question 6

Paper 2Easy5 marks

A game pays the player different amounts on each play. Let XX be the player’s net gain, in USD, on one play. The probability distribution of XX is shown in Figure 1.

-5-4-3-2-10123456700.10.20.30.40.5x, player’s net gain (USD)P(X=x)
(a)

Write down P(X=1)P(X=1)

[1]
(b)

Show that E(X)=0E(X)=0

[3]
(c)

Hence state whether the game is fair.

[1]

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