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Yuto works in the quality control department of a large company - Edexcel - A-Level Maths Statistics - Question 5 - 2017 - Paper 1

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Yuto works in the quality control department of a large company. The time, T minutes, it takes Yuto to analyse a sample is normally distributed with mean 18 minutes ... show full transcript

Worked Solution & Example Answer:Yuto works in the quality control department of a large company - Edexcel - A-Level Maths Statistics - Question 5 - 2017 - Paper 1

Step 1

Find the probability that Yuto takes longer than 20 minutes to analyse the next sample.

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Answer

To find this probability, we standardize the value using the z-score formula:

z=xμσz = \frac{x - \mu}{\sigma}

where:

  • x=20x = 20 (the value we are interested in)
  • μ=18\mu = 18 (mean)
  • σ=5\sigma = 5 (standard deviation)

Calculating the z-score:

z=20185=0.4z = \frac{20 - 18}{5} = 0.4

Now we use the z-table to find the probability:

P(T>20)=P(Z>0.4)=1P(Z<0.4)=10.6554=0.3446P(T > 20) = P(Z > 0.4) = 1 - P(Z < 0.4) = 1 - 0.6554 = 0.3446

Thus, the probability that Yuto takes longer than 20 minutes is approximately 0.345.

Step 2

Find the probability that this sample took Yuto more than 20 minutes to analyse.

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Answer

To find this conditional probability, we need:

P(T>20T>15)P(T > 20 | T > 15)

Using the definition of conditional probability:

P(AB)=P(AB)P(B)P(A|B) = \frac{P(A \cap B)}{P(B)}

Here, AA is the event that Yuto takes more than 20 minutes, and BB is the event that Yuto takes more than 15 minutes.

  1. Calculate P(T>15)P(T > 15): Standardizing:

    z=15185=0.6z = \frac{15 - 18}{5} = -0.6 Therefore, P(T>15)=1P(Z<0.6)=0.7257P(T > 15) = 1 - P(Z < -0.6) = 0.7257

  2. Calculate P(T>20T>15)P(T > 20 \cap T > 15) which is simply P(T>20)P(T > 20):
    As calculated earlier, P(T>20)=0.3446P(T > 20) = 0.3446

Now substituting into the conditional probability formula:

P(T>20T>15)=P(T>20)P(T>15)=0.34460.72570.4745P(T > 20 | T > 15) = \frac{P(T > 20)}{P(T > 15)} = \frac{0.3446}{0.7257} \approx 0.4745

Thus, the probability that a sample taken longer than 15 minutes also took more than 20 minutes is approximately 0.475.

Step 3

Estimate the median time taken by Yuto to analyse samples in future.

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Answer

For a normal distribution, the median is equal to the mean. Therefore, if Yuto's time to analyze the samples is normally distributed with a mean of 18 minutes, the median will also be 18 minutes.

We calculate for a more precise exploration around the lower portion: Since the time taken is normally distributed:

  • The median lies at the 50th percentile, hence it is most accurate to say:

Tmedian=μ=18T_{median} = \mu = 18

In this context, the median time is 18 minutes, but we can also consider the context of the samples analyzed and their distribution suggesting a rounded value around 19 minutes based on the earlier partial data accumulation.

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