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Date May 2022 Marks available 4 Reference code 22M.1.AHL.TZ1.9
Level Additional Higher Level Paper Paper 1 Time zone Time zone 1
Command term Find Question number 9 Adapted from N/A

Question

A company produces bags of sugar with a labelled weight of 1kg. The weights of the bags are normally distributed with a mean of 1kg and a standard deviation of 100g. In an inspection, if the weight of a randomly chosen bag is less than 950g then the company fails the inspection.

Find the probability that the company fails the inspection.

[2]
a.

A statistician in the company suggests it would be fairer if the company passes the inspection when the mean weight of five randomly chosen bags is greater than 950g.

Find the probability of passing the inspection if the statistician’s suggestion is followed.

[4]
b.

Markscheme

let X be the weight of sugar in the bag

PX<950=0.3085370.309         (M1)A1


[2 marks]

a.

METHOD 1

let X¯ be the mean weight of 5 bags of sugar

EX¯=1000         (A1)

use of VarX¯=σ2n         (M1)

VarX¯=10025  =2000         (A1)

X¯~N1000, 2000

PX¯>950=0.8682230.868  86.8%        A1

 

METHOD 2

let T be the total weight of 5 bags of sugar

ET=5000         (A1)

use of VarX1+X2=VarX1+VarX2 for independent random variables         (M1)

VarT=5×1002  =50000         (A1)

T~N5000, 50000

PT>4750=0.8682230.868  86.8%         A1

 

[4 marks]

b.

Examiners report

Part (a) was straightforward, and a good number of candidates showed their knowledge in achieving a correct answer. Candidates are advised to not use calculator notation, as examiners cannot be familiar with all variations of GDC syntax; instead, correct mathematical notation and/or a written commentary will ensure the method is communicated to the examiner. Rounding errors once again caused problems for some. Good answers to part (b) were much less common and this was a challenging question for many. A few understood how to use the central limit theorem to find the sampling distribution of the sample mean and a few used the mean and variance of the sum of independent random variables.

a.
[N/A]
b.

Syllabus sections

Topic 4—Statistics and probability » AHL 4.14—Linear transformation of a single RV, E(X) and VAR(X), unbiased estimators
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Topic 4—Statistics and probability » AHL 4.15—Central limit theorem
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