S1 normal distribution question

Maths and statistics discussion, revision, exam and homework help.

Announcements Posted on
Please change your TSR password 23-05-2013
Enter our travel-writing competition for the chance to win a Nikon 1 J3 camera 20-05-2013
IMPORTANT: You must wait until midnight (morning exams)/4.30AM (afternoon exams) to discuss Edexcel exams and until 1pm/6pm the following day for STEP and IB exams. Please read before posting, including for rules for practical and oral exams. 28-04-2013
Sign in to Reply
  1. Schicksal's Avatar
    • Junior Member
    • Posts: 60
    S1 normal distribution question
    Hi, im struggling with this question

    when you look up 0.9300 in the normal dist. table, you have to choose between

    1.47- 0.9292
    1.48-0.9306

    do you pick P(z<1.48) cos its closer to 0.9300? if so, how did they get 1.476..i.e how do you precisely pick which one is more appropriate? :confused:
    Attached Thumbnails
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	s1 question.jpg 
Views:	16 
Size:	26.9 KB 
ID:	142089  
  2. Schicksal's Avatar
    • Junior Member
    • Posts: 60
    Re: S1 normal distribution question
    bump?
  3. ccm.blake95's Avatar
    • Junior Member
    • Posts: 74
    Re: S1 normal distribution question
    Same thing happened to us in class. Our teacher told us that should never happen in a real exam, that all of the answers would be accurate if we'd got them right, but for the purposes of those questions to either use the closest or make an estimate. Do you have the answer sheet to work out what they wanted?

    We were told it was because different people print different values, so if you use say an Edexcel worksheet with an independent ND table, you're likely not to find the results you need.
  4. starkrush's Avatar
    • Adored and Respected Member
    • Location: Woking
    • Posts: 403
    Re: S1 normal distribution question
    This is probably an old paper. They used to do it by linear interpolation. It's in FP1 but it's fairly simple (I think). It's basically the "fraction of the way along" is the correct value. 0.93 is 0.008 above the lower value (which is 0.9292, corresponding to 1.47), out of a total 'gap' of 0.014. 0.008/0.014 = 0.6, to 1 decimal place. So 60% of the way between 1.47 and 1.48 is the correct value, i.e. 1.476.

    But don't worry, you don't have to do it!
  5. Schicksal's Avatar
    • Junior Member
    • Posts: 60
    Re: S1 normal distribution question
    (Original post by starkrush)
    This is probably an old paper. They used to do it by linear interpolation. It's in FP1 but it's fairly simple (I think). It's basically the "fraction of the way along" is the correct value. 0.93 is 0.008 above the lower value (which is 0.9292, corresponding to 1.47), out of a total 'gap' of 0.014. 0.008/0.014 = 0.6, to 1 decimal place. So 60% of the way between 1.47 and 1.48 is the correct value, i.e. 1.476.

    But don't worry, you don't have to do it!
    I know how to do linear interpolation :P I sat FP1 in Jan!

    Thanks for the help guys
  6. torakrubik's Avatar
    • Full Member
    • Posts: 77
    Re: S1 normal distribution question
    I'd pick the closest one...
Sign in to Reply
Share this discussion:  
Article updates
Moderators

We have a brilliant team of more than 60 volunteers looking after discussions on The Student Room, helping to make it a fun, safe and useful place to hang out.

Reputation gems:
The Reputation gems seen here indicate how well reputed the user is, red gem indicate negative reputation and green indicates a good rep.
Post rating score:
These scores show if a post has been positively or negatively rated by our members.