2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part A
Questions 1-5
Spend about 65 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—75

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. Two large corporations, A and B, hire many new college graduates as accountants at entry-level positions. In
2009 the starting salary for an entry-level accountant position was $36,000 a year at both corporations. At each
corporation, data were collected from 30 employees who were hired in 2009 as entry-level accountants and were
still employed at the corporation five years later. The yearly salaries of the 60 employees in 2014 are
summarized in the boxplots below.

(a) Write a few sentences comparing the distributions of the yearly salaries at the two corporations.

(b) Suppose both corporations offered you a job for $36,000 a year as an entry-level accountant.
(i) Based on the boxplots, give one reason why you might choose to accept the job at corporation A.
(ii) Based on the boxplots, give one reason why you might choose to accept the job at corporation B.

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

2. To increase business, the owner of a restaurant is running a promotion in which a customer’s bill can be
randomly selected to receive a discount. When a customer’s bill is printed, a program in the cash register
randomly determines whether the customer will receive a discount on the bill. The program was written to
generate a discount with a probability of 0.2, that is, giving 20 percent of the bills a discount in the long run.
However, the owner is concerned that the program has a mistake that results in the program not generating the
intended long-run proportion of 0.2.
The owner selected a random sample of bills and found that only 15 percent of them received discounts. A
confidence interval for p, the proportion of bills that will receive a discount in the long run, is 0.15 “ 0.06.
All conditions for inference were met.

(a) Consider the confidence interval 0.15 “ 0.06.

(i) Does the confidence interval provide convincing statistical evidence that the program is not working as
intended? Justify your answer.
(ii) Does the confidence interval provide convincing statistical evidence that the program generates the
discount with a probability of 0.2 ? Justify your answer.

A second random sample of bills was taken that was four times the size of the original sample. In the second
sample 15 percent of the bills received the discount.
(b) Determine the value of the margin of error based on the second sample of bills that would be used to
compute an interval for p with the same confidence level as that of the original interval.

(c) Based on the margin of error in part (b) that was obtained from the second sample, what do you conclude
about whether the program is working as intended? Justify your answer.

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

3. A shopping mall has three automated teller machines (ATMs). Because the machines receive heavy use, they
sometimes stop working and need to be repaired. Let the random variable X represent the number of ATMs that
are working when the mall opens on a randomly selected day. The table shows the probability distribution of X.

Number of ATMs working when the mall opens 0 1 2 3

Probability 0.15 0.21 0.40 0.24

(a) What is the probability that at least one ATM is working when the mall opens?

(b) What is the expected value of the number of ATMs that are working when the mall opens?

(c) What is the probability that all three ATMs are working when the mall opens, given that at least one ATM is
working?

(d) Given that at least one ATM is working when the mall opens, would the expected value of the number of
ATMs that are working be less than, equal to, or greater than the expected value from part (b) ? Explain.

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

4. A researcher conducted a medical study to investigate whether taking a low-dose aspirin reduces the chance
of developing colon cancer. As part of the study, 1,000 adult volunteers were randomly assigned to one of two
groups. Half of the volunteers were assigned to the experimental group that took a low-dose aspirin each day,
and the other half were assigned to the control group that took a placebo each day. At the end of six years,
15 of the people who took the low-dose aspirin had developed colon cancer and 26 of the people who took
the placebo had developed colon cancer. At the significance level a 0.05, do the data provide convincing
statistical evidence that taking a low-dose aspirin each day would reduce the chance of developing colon cancer
among all people similar to the volunteers?

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

5. A student measured the heights and the arm spans, rounded to the nearest inch, of each person in a random
sample of 12 seniors at a high school. A scatterplot of arm span versus height for the 12 seniors is shown.

(a) Based on the scatterplot, describe the relationship between arm span and height for the sample of 12 seniors.

Let x represent height, in inches, and let y represent arm span, in inches. Two scatterplots of the same data
are shown below. Graph 1 shows the data with the least squares regression line yˆ 11.74  0.8247 x, and
graph 2 shows the data with the line y x.

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

(b) The criteria described in the table below can be used to classify people into one of three body shape
categories: square, tall rectangle, or short rectangle.
Square Tall Rectangle Short Rectangle
Arm span is equal to height. Arm span is less than height. Arm span is greater than height.

(i) For which graph, 1 or 2, is the line helpful in classifying a student’s body shape as square, tall
rectangle, or short rectangle? Explain.

(ii) Complete the table of classifications for the 12 seniors.

Classification Square Tall Rectangle Short Rectangle

Frequency

(c) Using the best model for prediction, calculate the predicted arm span for a senior with height 61 inches.

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part B
Question 6
Spend about 25 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—25

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. Corn tortillas are made at a large facility that produces 100,000 tortillas per day on each of its two production
lines. The distribution of the diameters of the tortillas produced on production line A is approximately normal
with mean 5.9 inches, and the distribution of the diameters of the tortillas produced on production line B is
approximately normal with mean 6.1 inches. The figure below shows the distributions of diameters for the
two production lines.

The tortillas produced at the factory are advertised as having a diameter of 6 inches. For the purpose of quality
control, a sample of 200 tortillas is selected and the diameters are measured. From the sample of 200 tortillas, the
manager of the facility wants to estimate the mean diameter, in inches, of the 200,000 tortillas produced on a
given day. Two sampling methods have been proposed.
Method 1: Take a random sample of 200 tortillas from the 200,000 tortillas produced on a given day.
Measure the diameter of each selected tortilla.
Method 2: Randomly select one of the two production lines on a given day. Take a random sample of
200 tortillas from the 100,000 tortillas produced by the selected production line. Measure the diameter of
each selected tortilla.

(a) Will a sample obtained using Method 2 be representative of the population of all tortillas made that day,
with respect to the diameters of the tortillas? Explain why or why not.

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 2015 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

(b) The figure below is a histogram of 200 diameters obtained by using one of the two sampling methods
described. Considering the shape of the histogram, explain which method, Method 1 or Method 2, was most
likely used to obtain a such a sample.

(c) Which of the two sampling methods, Method 1 or Method 2, will result in less variability in the diameters of
the 200 tortillas in the sample on a given day? Explain.

Each day, the distribution of the 200,000 tortillas made that day has mean diameter 6 inches with standard
deviation 0.11 inch.
(d) For samples of size 200 taken from one day’s production, describe the sampling distribution of the sample
mean diameter for samples that are obtained using Method 1.

(e) Suppose that one of the two sampling methods will be selected and used every day for one year (365 days).
The sample mean of the 200 diameters will be recorded each day. Which of the two methods will result in
less variability in the distribution of the 365 sample means? Explain.

(f) A government inspector will visit the facility on June 22 to observe the sampling and to determine if the
factory is in compliance with the advertised mean diameter of 6 inches. The manager knows that, with both
sampling methods, the sample mean is an unbiased estimator of the population mean. However, the manager
is unsure which method is more likely to produce a sample mean that is close to 6 inches on the day of
sampling. Based on your previous answers, which of the two sampling methods, Method 1 or Method 2, is
more likely to produce a sample mean close to 6 inches? Explain.

STOP

END OF EXAM

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STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part A
Questions 1-5
Spend about 65 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—75

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. Robin works as a server in a small restaurant, where she can earn a tip (extra money) from each customer she
serves. The histogram below shows the distribution of her 60 tip amounts for one day of work.

(a) Write a few sentences to describe the distribution of tip amounts for the day shown.
(b) One of the tip amounts was $8. If the $8 tip had been $18, what effect would the increase have had on the
following statistics? Justify your answers.
The mean:

The median:

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2. Product advertisers studied the effects of television ads on children’s choices for two new snacks. The
advertisers used two 30-second television ads in an experiment. One ad was for a new sugary snack called
Choco-Zuties, and the other ad was for a new healthy snack called Apple-Zuties.
For the experiment, 75 children were randomly assigned to one of three groups, A, B, or C. Each child
individually watched a 30-minute television program that was interrupted for 5 minutes of advertising.
The advertising was the same for each group with the following exceptions.
• The advertising for group A included the Choco-Zuties ad but not the Apple-Zuties ad.
• The advertising for group B included the Apple-Zuties ad but not the Choco-Zuties ad.
• The advertising for group C included neither the Choco-Zuties ad nor the Apple-Zuties ad.
After the program, the children were offered a choice between the two snacks. The table below summarizes their
choices.
Number Who Chose Number Who Chose
Group Type of Ad
Choco-Zuties Apple-Zuties
A Choco-Zuties only 21 4
B Apple-Zuties only 13 12
C Neither 22 3

(a) Do the data provide convincing statistical evidence that there is an association between type of ad and
children’s choice of snack among all children similar to those who participated in the experiment?

(b) Write a few sentences describing the effect of each ad on children’s choice of snack.

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3. Alzheimer’s disease results in a loss of cognitive ability beyond what is expected with typical aging. A local
newspaper published an article with the following headline.

Study Finds Strong Association Between Smoking and Alzheimer’s

The article reported that a study tracked the medical histories of 21,123 men and women for 23 years.
The article stated that, for those who smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day, the risk of developing
Alzheimer’s disease was 2.57 times the risk for those who did not smoke.
(a) Identify the explanatory and response variables in the study.
Explanatory variable:

Response variable:

(b) Is the study described in the article an observational study or an experiment? Explain.
(c) Exercise status (regular weekly exercise versus no regular weekly exercise) was mentioned in the article as a
possible confounding variable. Explain how exercise status could be a confounding variable in the study.

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4. A company manufactures model rockets that require igniters to launch. Once an igniter is used to launch a
rocket, the igniter cannot be reused. Sometimes an igniter fails to operate correctly, and the rocket does not
launch. The company estimates that the overall failure rate, defined as the percent of all igniters that fail to
operate correctly, is 15 percent.
A company engineer develops a new igniter, called the super igniter, with the intent of lowering the failure rate.
To test the performance of the super igniters, the engineer uses the following process.
Step 1: One super igniter is selected at random and used in a rocket.
Step 2: If the rocket launches, another super igniter is selected at random and used in a rocket.
Step 2 is repeated until the process stops. The process stops when a super igniter fails to operate correctly or
32 super igniters have successfully launched rockets, whichever comes first. Assume that super igniter failures
are independent.
(a) If the failure rate of the super igniters is 15 percent, what is the probability that the first 30 super igniters
selected using the testing process successfully launch rockets?
(b) Given that the first 30 super igniters successfully launch rockets, what is the probability that the first failure
occurs on the thirty-first or the thirty-second super igniter tested if the failure rate of the super igniters is
15 percent?
(c) Given that the first 30 super igniters successfully launch rockets, is it reasonable to believe that the failure
rate of the super igniters is less than 15 percent? Explain.

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5. A polling agency showed the following two statements to a random sample of 1,048 adults in the United States.

Environment statement: Protection of the environment should be given priority over economic growth.
Economy statement: Economic growth should be given priority over protection of the environment.

The order in which the statements were shown was randomly selected for each person in the sample. After
reading the statements, each person was asked to choose the statement that was most consistent with his or her
opinion. The results are shown in the table.
Environment Statement Economy Statement No Preference
Percent of sample 58% 37% 5%

(a) Assume the conditions for inference have been met. Construct and interpret a 95 percent confidence interval
for the proportion of all adults in the United States who would have chosen the economy statement.
(b) One of the conditions for inference that was met is that the number who chose the economy statement and
the number who did not choose the economy statement are both greater than 10. Explain why it is necessary
to satisfy that condition.
(c) A suggestion was made to use a two-sample z-interval for a difference between proportions to investigate
whether the difference in proportions between adults in the United States who would have chosen the
environment statement and adults in the United States who would have chosen the economy statement is
statistically significant. Is the two-sample z-interval for a difference between proportions an appropriate
procedure to investigate the difference? Justify your answer.

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STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part B
Question 6
Spend about 25 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—25

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. A newspaper in Germany reported that the more semesters needed to complete an academic program at the
university, the greater the starting salary in the first year of a job. The report was based on a study that used a
random sample of 24 people who had recently completed an academic program. Information was collected on
the number of semesters each person in the sample needed to complete the program and the starting salary, in
thousands of euros, for the first year of a job. The data are shown in the scatterplot below.

(a) Does the scatterplot support the newspaper report about number of semesters and starting salary? Justify
your answer.

The table below shows computer output from a linear regression analysis on the data.
Predictor Coef SE Coef T P
Constant 34.018 4.455 7.64 0.000
Semesters 1.1594 0.3482 3.33 0.003

S = 7.37702 R-Sq = 33.5% R-Sq(adj) = 30.5%

(b) Identify the slope of the least-squares regression line, and interpret the slope in context.

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An independent researcher received the data from the newspaper and conducted a new analysis by separating the
data into three groups based on the major of each person. A revised scatterplot identifying the major of each
person is shown below.

(c) Based on the people in the sample, describe the association between starting salary and number of semesters
for the business majors.

(d) Based on the people in the sample, compare the median starting salaries for the three majors.

(e) Based on the analysis conducted by the independent researcher, how could the newspaper report be modified
to give a better description of the relationship between the number of semesters and the starting salary for
the people in the sample?

STOP

END OF EXAM

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part A
Questions 1-5
Spend about 65 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—75

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. Researchers studying a pack of gray wolves in North America collected data on the length x, in meters, from
nose to tip of tail, and the weight y, in kilograms, of the wolves. A scatterplot of weight versus length revealed
a relationship between the two variables described as positive, linear, and strong.
(a) For the situation described above, explain what is meant by each of the following words.
(i) Positive:
(ii) Linear:
(iii) Strong:
The data collected from the wolves were used to create the least-squares equation yˆ = -16.46 + 35.02 x.
(b) Interpret the meaning of the slope of the least-squares regression line in context.
(c) One wolf in the pack with a length of 1.4 meters had a residual of -9.67 kilograms. What was the weight
of the wolf?

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

2. The manager of a local fast-food restaurant is concerned about customers who ask for a water cup when placing
an order but fill the cup with a soft drink from the beverage fountain instead of filling the cup with water. The
manager selected a random sample of 80 customers who asked for a water cup when placing an order and found
that 23 of those customers filled the cup with a soft drink from the beverage fountain.
(a) Construct and interpret a 95 percent confidence interval for the proportion of all customers who, having
asked for a water cup when placing an order, will fill the cup with a soft drink from the beverage fountain.
(b) The manager estimates that each customer who asks for a water cup but fills it with a soft drink costs the
restaurant $0.25. Suppose that in the month of June 3,000 customers ask for a water cup when placing
an order. Use the confidence interval constructed in part (a) to give an interval estimate for the cost to
the restaurant for the month of June from the customers who ask for a water cup but fill the cup with
a soft drink.

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

3. A grocery store purchases melons from two distributors, J and K. Distributor J provides melons from organic
farms. The distribution of the diameters of the melons from Distributor J is approximately normal with mean
133 millimeters (mm) and standard deviation 5 mm.
(a) For a melon selected at random from Distributor J, what is the probability that the melon will have a
diameter greater than 137 mm?
Distributor K provides melons from nonorganic farms. The probability is 0.8413 that a melon selected at random
from Distributor K will have a diameter greater than 137 mm. For all the melons at the grocery store, 70 percent
of the melons are provided by Distributor J and 30 percent are provided by Distributor K.
(b) For a melon selected at random from the grocery store, what is the probability that the melon will have a
diameter greater than 137 mm?
(c) Given that a melon selected at random from the grocery store has a diameter greater than 137 mm, what is
the probability that the melon will be from Distributor J?

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

4. The chemicals in clay used to make pottery can differ depending on the geographical region where the clay
originated. Sometimes, archaeologists use a chemical analysis of clay to help identify where a piece of pottery
originated. Such an analysis measures the amount of a chemical in the clay as a percent of the total weight of the
piece of pottery. The boxplots below summarize analyses done for three chemicals—X, Y, and Z—on pieces of
pottery that originated at one of three sites: I, II, or III.

(a) For chemical Z, describe how the percents found in the pieces of pottery are similar and how they differ
among the three sites.
(b) Consider a piece of pottery known to have originated at one of the three sites, but the actual site is not
known.
(i) Suppose an analysis of the clay reveals that the sum of the percents of the three chemicals X, Y, and Z
is 20.5%. Based on the boxplots, which site—I, II, or III—is the most likely site where the piece of
pottery originated? Justify your choice.
(ii) Suppose only one chemical could be analyzed in the piece of pottery. Which chemical—X, Y, or Z—
would be the most useful in identifying the site where the piece of pottery originated? Justify your
choice.

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

5. The table and the bar chart below summarize the age at diagnosis, in years, for a random sample of 207 men and
women currently being treated for schizophrenia.

Age-Group (years)
20 to 29 30 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 59 Total
Women 46 40 21 12 119
Men 53 23 9 3 88
Total 99 63 30 15 207

Do the data provide convincing statistical evidence of an association between age-group and gender in the
diagnosis of schizophrenia?

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part B
Question 6
Spend about 25 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—25

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. Consider an experiment in which two men and two women will be randomly assigned to either a treatment group
or a control group in such a way that each group has two people. The people are identified as Man 1, Man 2,
Woman 1, and Woman 2. The six possible arrangements are shown below.

Arrangement A Arrangement B Arrangement C

Treatment Control Treatment Control Treatment Control
Man 1 Woman 1 Man 1 Man 2 Man 1 Man 2
Man 2 Woman 2 Woman 1 Woman 2 Woman 2 Woman 1

Arrangement D Arrangement E Arrangement F

Treatment Control Treatment Control Treatment Control
Woman 1 Man 1 Man 2 Man 1 Man 2 Man 1
Woman 2 Man 2 Woman 2 Woman 1 Woman 1 Woman 2

Two possible methods of assignment are being considered: the sequential coin flip method, as described in
part (a), and the chip method, as described in part (b). For each method, the order of the assignment will be
Man 1, Man 2, Woman 1, Woman 2.
(a) For the sequential coin flip method, a fair coin is flipped until one group has two people. An outcome of tails
assigns the person to the treatment group, and an outcome of heads assigns the person to the control group.
As soon as one group has two people, the remaining people are automatically assigned to the other group.
(i) Complete the table below by calculating the probability of each arrangement occurring if the sequential
coin flip method is used.

Arrangement A B C D E F

Probability

(ii) For the sequential coin flip method, what is the probability that Man 1 and Man 2 are assigned to the
same group?

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 2017 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

The six arrangements are repeated below.

Arrangement A Arrangement B Arrangement C

Treatment Control Treatment Control Treatment Control
Man 1 Woman 1 Man 1 Man 2 Man 1 Man 2
Man 2 Woman 2 Woman 1 Woman 2 Woman 2 Woman 1

Arrangement D Arrangement E Arrangement F

Treatment Control Treatment Control Treatment Control
Woman 1 Man 1 Man 2 Man 1 Man 2 Man 1
Woman 2 Man 2 Woman 2 Woman 1 Woman 1 Woman 2

(b) For the chip method, two chips are marked “treatment” and two chips are marked “control.” Each person
selects one chip at random without replacement.
(i) Complete the table below by calculating the probability of each arrangement occurring if the chip
method is used.

Arrangement A B C D E F

Probability

(ii) For the chip method, what is the probability that Man 1 and Man 2 are assigned to the same group?

(c) Sixteen participants consisting of 10 students and 6 teachers at an elementary school will be used for an
experiment to determine lunch preference for the school population of students and teachers. As the
participants enter the school cafeteria for lunch, they will be randomly assigned to receive one of two
lunches so that 8 will receive a salad, and 8 will receive a grilled cheese sandwich. The students will enter
the cafeteria first, and the teachers will enter next. Which method, the sequential coin flip method or the chip
method, should be used to assign the treatments? Justify your choice.

STOP

END OF EXAM

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 2018 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part A
Questions 1-5
Spend about 1 hour and 5 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—75

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. The manager of a grocery store selected a random sample of 11 customers to investigate the relationship
between the number of customers in a checkout line and the time to finish checkout. As soon as the selected
customer entered the end of a checkout line, data were collected on the number of customers in line who were in
front of the selected customer and the time, in seconds, until the selected customer was finished with the
checkout. The data are shown in the following scatterplot along with the corresponding least-squares regression
line and computer output.

Predictor Coef SE Coef T P

Constant 72.95 110.36 0.66 0.525
Customers in line 174.40 35.06 4.97 0.001

S = 200.01 R-Sq = 73.33% R-Sq (adj) = 70.37%

(a) Identify and interpret in context the estimate of the intercept for the least-squares regression line.

(b) Identify and interpret in context the coefficient of determination, r 2 .

(c) One of the data points was determined to be an outlier. Circle the point on the scatterplot and explain why
the point is considered an outlier.

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 2018 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

2. An environmental science teacher at a high school with a large population of students wanted to estimate the
proportion of students at the school who regularly recycle plastic bottles. The teacher selected a random sample
of students at the school to survey. Each selected student went into the teacher’s office, one at a time, and was
asked to respond yes or no to the following question.

Do you regularly recycle plastic bottles?

Based on the responses, a 95 percent confidence interval for the proportion of all students at the school who
would respond yes to the question was calculated as ( 0.584, 0.816) .
(a) How many students were in the sample selected by the environmental science teacher?
(b) Given the method used by the environmental science teacher to collect the responses, explain how bias
might have been introduced and describe how the bias might affect the point estimate of the proportion of all
students at the school who would respond yes to the question.
(c) The statistics teacher at the high school was concerned about the potential bias in the survey. To obtain a
potentially less biased estimate of the proportion, the statistics teacher used an alternate method for
collecting student responses. A random sample of 300 students was selected, and each student was given the
following instructions on how to respond to the question.
• In private, flip a fair coin.
• If heads, you must respond no, regardless of whether you regularly recycle.
• If tails, please truthfully respond yes or no.
(i) What is the expected number of students from the sample of 300 who would be required to respond no
because the coin flip resulted in heads?
(ii) The results of the sample showed that 213 of the 300 selected students responded no. Based on the
results of the sample, give a point estimate for the proportion of all students at the high school who
would respond yes to the question.

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 2018 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

3. Approximately 3.5 percent of all children born in a certain region are from multiple births (that is, twins, triplets,
etc.). Of the children born in the region who are from multiple births, 22 percent are left-handed. Of the children
born in the region who are from single births, 11 percent are left-handed.
(a) What is the probability that a randomly selected child born in the region is left-handed?
(b) What is the probability that a randomly selected child born in the region is a child from a multiple birth,
given that the child selected is left-handed?
(c) A random sample of 20 children born in the region will be selected. What is the probability that the sample
will have at least 3 children who are left-handed?

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 2018 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

4. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the ligaments that help stabilize the knee. Surgery is often
recommended if the ACL is completely torn, and recovery time from the surgery can be lengthy. A medical
center developed a new surgical procedure designed to reduce the average recovery time from the surgery. To
test the effectiveness of the new procedure, a study was conducted in which 210 patients needing surgery to
repair a torn ACL were randomly assigned to receive either the standard procedure or the new procedure.
(a) Based on the design of the study, would a statistically significant result allow the medical center to conclude
that the new procedure causes a reduction in recovery time compared to the standard procedure, for patients
similar to those in the study? Explain your answer.
(b) Summary statistics on the recovery times from the surgery are shown in the table.

Type of Sample Mean Recovery Time Standard Deviation

Procedure Size (days) Recovery Time (days)
Standard 110 217 34
New 100 186 29

Do the data provide convincing statistical evidence that those who receive the new procedure will have less
recovery time from the surgery, on average, than those who receive the standard procedure, for patients
similar to those in the study?

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 2018 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

5. The following histograms summarize the teaching year for the teachers at two high schools, A and B.

Teaching year is recorded as an integer, with first-year teachers recorded as 1, second-year teachers recorded as
2, and so on. Both sets of data have a mean teaching year of 8.2, with data recorded from 200 teachers at High
School A and 221 teachers at High School B. On the histograms, each interval represents possible integer values
from the left endpoint up to but not including the right endpoint.
(a) The median teaching year for one high school is 6, and the median teaching year for the other high school is
7. Identify which high school has each median and justify your answer.
(b) An additional 18 teachers were not included with the data recorded from the 200 teachers at High School A.
The mean teaching year of the 18 teachers is 2.5. What is the mean teaching year for all 218 teachers at High
School A?
(c) The standard deviation of the teaching year for the 221 teachers at High School B is 7.2. If one teacher is
selected at random from High School B, what is the probability that the teaching year for the selected
teacher will be within 1 standard deviation of the mean of 8.2 ? Justify your answer.

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 2018 AP® STATISTICS FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part B
Question 6
Spend about 25 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—25

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. Systolic blood pressure is the amount of pressure that blood exerts on blood vessels while the heart is beating.
The mean systolic blood pressure for people in the United States is reported to be 122 millimeters of mercury
(mmHg) with a standard deviation of 15 mmHg.
The wellness department of a large corporation is investigating whether the mean systolic blood pressure of
its employees is greater than the reported national mean. A random sample of 100 employees will be selected,
the systolic blood pressure of each employee in the sample will be measured, and the sample mean will be
calculated.
Let m represent the mean systolic blood pressure of all employees at the corporation. Consider the following
hypotheses.
H 0 : m = 122
H a : m > 122

(a) Describe a Type II error in the context of the hypothesis test.

(b) Assume that s, the standard deviation of the systolic blood pressure of all employees at the corporation, is
15 mmHg. If m = 122, the sampling distribution of x for samples of size 100 is approximately normal with
a mean of 122 mmHg and a standard deviation of 1.5 mmHg. What values of the sample mean x would
represent sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis at the significance level of a = 0.05 ?
The actual mean systolic blood pressure of all employees at the corporation is 125 mmHg, not the hypothesized
value of 122 mmHg, and the standard deviation is 15 mmHg.
(c) Using the actual mean of 125 mmHg and the results from part (b), determine the probability that the null
hypothesis will be rejected.
(d) What statistical term is used for the probability found in part (c) ?
(e) Suppose the size of the sample of employees to be selected is greater than 100. Would the probability of
rejecting the null hypothesis be greater than, less than, or equal to the probability calculated in part (c) ?
Explain your reasoning.

STOP

END OF EXAM

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 STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part A
Questions 1-5
Spend about 1 hour and 5 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—75

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. The sizes, in square feet, of the 20 rooms in a student residence hall at a certain university are summarized in the
following histogram.

(a) Based on the histogram, write a few sentences describing the distribution of room size in the residence hall.
(b) Summary statistics for the sizes are given in the following table.
Standard
Mean Min Q1 Median Q3 Max
Deviation
231.4 68.12 134 174 253.5 292 315

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Determine whether there are potential outliers in the data. Then use the following grid to sketch a boxplot of
room size.

(c) What characteristic of the shape of the distribution of room size is apparent from the histogram but not from
the boxplot?

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2. Researchers are investigating the effectiveness of using a fungus to control the spread of an insect that destroys
trees. The researchers will create four different concentrations of fungus mixtures: 0 milliliters per liter (ml/L),
1.25 ml/L, 2.5 ml/L, and 3.75 ml/L. An equal number of the insects will be placed into 20 individual containers.
The group of insects in each container will be sprayed with one of the four mixtures, and the researchers will
record the number of insects that are still alive in each container one week after spraying.
(a) Identify the treatments, experimental units, and response variable of the experiment.
Treatments:
Experimental units:
Response variable:

(b) Does the experiment have a control group? Explain your answer.
(c) Describe how the treatments can be randomly assigned to the experimental units so that each treatment
has the same number of units.

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3. A medical researcher surveyed a large group of men and women about whether they take medicine as prescribed.
The responses were categorized as never, sometimes, or always. The relative frequency of each category is
shown in the table.
Never Sometimes Always Total
Men 0.0564 0.2016 0.2120 0.4700
Women 0.0636 0.1384 0.3280 0.5300
Total 0.1200 0.3400 0.5400 1.0000

(a) One person from those surveyed will be selected at random.

(i) What is the probability that the person selected will be someone whose response is never and who is a
woman?
(ii) What is the probability that the person selected will be someone whose response is never or who is a
woman?
(iii) What is the probability that the person selected will be someone whose response is never given that the
person is a woman?
(b) For the people surveyed, are the events of being a person whose response is never and being a woman
independent? Justify your answer.
(c) Assume that, in a large population, the probability that a person will always take medicine as prescribed
is 0.54. If 5 people are selected at random from the population, what is the probability that at least 4 of
the people selected will always take medicine as prescribed? Support your answer.

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4. Tumbleweed, commonly found in the western United States, is the dried structure of certain plants that are
blown by the wind. Kochia, a type of plant that turns into tumbleweed at the end of the summer, is a problem for
farmers because it takes nutrients away from soil that would otherwise go to more beneficial plants. Scientists
are concerned that kochia plants are becoming resistant to the most commonly used herbicide, glyphosate. In
2014, 19.7 percent of 61 randomly selected kochia plants were resistant to glyphosate. In 2017, 38.5 percent of
52 randomly selected kochia plants were resistant to glyphosate. Do the data provide convincing statistical
evidence, at the level of a = 0.05, that there has been an increase in the proportion of all kochia plants that are
resistant to glyphosate?

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5. A company that manufactures smartphones developed a new battery that has a longer life span than that of a
traditional battery. From the date of purchase of a smartphone, the distribution of the life span of the new battery
is approximately normal with mean 30 months and standard deviation 8 months. For the price of $50, the
company offers a two-year warranty on the new battery for customers who purchase a smartphone. The warranty
guarantees that the smartphone will be replaced at no cost to the customer if the battery no longer works within
24 months from the date of purchase.
(a) In how many months from the date of purchase is it expected that 25 percent of the batteries will no longer
work? Justify your answer.
(b) Suppose one customer who purchases the warranty is selected at random. What is the probability that the
customer selected will require a replacement within 24 months from the date of purchase because the battery
no longer works?
(c) The company has a gain of $50 for each customer who purchases a warranty but does not require
a replacement. The company has a loss (negative gain) of $150 for each customer who purchases a warranty
and does require a replacement. What is the expected value of the gain for the company for each warranty
purchased?

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 STATISTICS
SECTION II
Part B
Question 6
Spend about 25 minutes on this part of the exam.
Percent of Section II score—25

Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the
correctness of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. Emma is moving to a large city and is investigating typical monthly rental prices of available one-bedroom
apartments. She obtained a random sample of rental prices for 50 one-bedroom apartments taken from a Web
site where people voluntarily list available apartments.
(a) Describe the population for which it is appropriate for Emma to generalize the results from her sample.
The distribution of the 50 rental prices of the available apartments is shown in the following histogram.

(b) Emma wants to estimate the typical rental price of a one-bedroom apartment in the city. Based on the
distribution shown, what is a disadvantage of using the mean rather than the median as an estimate of the
typical rental price?
(c) Instead of using the sample median as the point estimate for the population median, Emma wants to use an
interval estimate. However, computing an interval estimate requires knowing the sampling distribution
of the sample median for samples of size 50. Emma has one point, her sample median, in that sampling
distribution. Using information about rental prices that are available on the Web site, describe how someone
could develop a theoretical sampling distribution of the sample median for samples of size 50.

Because Emma does not have the resources to develop the theoretical sampling distribution, she estimates the
sampling distribution of the sample median using a process called bootstrapping. In the bootstrapping process,
a computer program performs the following steps.
• Take a random sample, with replacement, of size 50 from the original sample.
• Calculate and record the median of the sample.
• Repeat the process to obtain a total of 15,000 medians.

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Emma ran the bootstrap process, and the following frequency table is the bootstrap distribution showing her
results of generating 15,000 medians.

Bootstrap Distribution of Medians

Median Frequency Median Frequency Median Frequency
2,345 1 2,585 1 2,825 247
2,390 13 2,587.5 171 2,837.5 7
2,395 18 2,600 22 2,847.5 1
2,400 56 2,612.5 1,190 2,872.5 317
2,445 4 2,625 174 2,885 10
2,447.5 56 2,672.5 5 2,950 700
2,450 55 2,675 1,924 2,962.5 93
2,475 3 2,687.5 1,341 2,972.5 6
2,495 66 2,700 2,825 2,975 65
2,497.5 136 2,735 35 2,985 12
2,500 1,899 2,747.5 619 2,987.5 1
2,522.5 2 2,750 2 2,995 6
2,525 945 2,795 278 3,000 2
2,550 1,673 2,812.5 16 3,062.5 3

The bootstrap distribution provides an approximation of the sampling distribution of the sample median.
A confidence interval for the median can be constructed using a percentage of the values in the middle of the
bootstrap distribution.
(d) Use the frequency table to find the following.
(i) Value of the 5th percentile:
(ii) Value of the 95th percentile:
(e) Find the percentage of bootstrap medians in the table that are equal to or between the values found in
part (d).
(f) Use your values from parts (d) and (e) to construct and interpret a confidence interval for the median
rental price.

STOP

END OF EXAM
 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Total Time—1 hour and 30 minutes
6 Questions

Part A
Questions 1-5
Spend about 1 hour and 5 minutes on this part of the exam.
Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the correctness
of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. The length of stay in a hospital after receiving a particular treatment is of interest to the patient, the hospital, and
insurance providers. Of particular interest are unusually short or long lengths of stay. A random sample of
50 patients who received the treatment was selected, and the length of stay, in number of days, was recorded for
each patient. The results are summarized in the following table and are shown in the dotplot.

Length of stay (days) 5 6 7 8 9 12 21

Number of patients 4 13 14 11 6 1 1

(a) Determine the five-number summary of the distribution of length of stay.

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(b) Consider two rules for identifying outliers, method A and method B. Let method A represent the
1.5 ¥ IQR rule, and let method B represent the 2 standard deviations rule.

(i) Using method A, determine any data points that are potential outliers in the distribution of length of
stay. Justify your answer.

(ii) The mean length of stay for the sample is 7.42 days with a standard deviation of 2.37 days. Using
method B, determine any data points that are potential outliers in the distribution of length of stay. Justify
your answer.

(c) Explain why method A might identify more data points as potential outliers than method B for a
distribution that is strongly skewed to the right.

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 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

2. Researchers will conduct a year-long investigation of walking and cholesterol levels in adults. They will
select a random sample of 100 adults from the target population to participate as subjects in the study.

(a) One aspect of the study is to record the number of miles each subject walks per day. The researchers
are deciding whether to have subjects wear an activity tracker to record the data or to have subjects keep
a daily journal of the miles they walk each day. Describe what bias could be introduced by keeping the
daily journal instead of wearing the activity tracker.

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AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

During the course of the study, the subjects will have their cholesterol levels measured each month by a
doctor. The researchers will perform a significance test at the end of the study to determine whether the
average cholesterol level for subjects who walk fewer miles each day is greater than for those who walk
more miles each day.

(b) Selecting a random sample creates a reasonable representative sample of the target population.
Explain the benefit of using a representative sample from the population.

(c) Suppose the researchers conduct the test and find a statistically significant result. Would it be valid to
claim that increased walking causes a decrease in average cholesterol levels for adults in the target
population? Explain your reasoning.

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 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

3. To increase morale among employees, a company began a program in which one employee is randomly
selected each week to receive a gift card. Each of the company’s 200 employees is equally likely to be
selected each week, and the same employee could be selected more than once. Each week’s selection is
independent from every other week.

(a) Consider the probability that a particular employee receives at least one gift card in a 52 -week year.

(i) Define the random variable of interest and state how the random variable is distributed.

(ii) Determine the probability that a particular employee receives at least one gift card in a 52 -week year.
Show your work.

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AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

(b) Calculate and interpret the expected value for the number of gift cards a particular employee will
receive in a 52 -week year. Show your work.

(c) Suppose that Agatha, an employee at the company, never receives a gift card for an entire 52 -week
year. Based on her experience, does Agatha have a strong argument that the selection process was not
truly random? Explain your answer.

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 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

4. The manager of a large company that sells pet supplies online wants to increase sales by encouraging repeat
purchases. The manager believes that if past customers are offered $10 off their next purchase, more than
40 percent of them will place an order. To investigate the belief, 90 customers who placed an order in the past
year are selected at random. Each of the selected customers is sent an e-mail with a coupon for $10 off the
next purchase if the order is placed within 30 days. Of those who receive the coupon, 38 place an order.

(a) Is there convincing statistical evidence, at the significance level of a = 0.05, that the manager’s
belief is correct? Complete the appropriate inference procedure to support your answer.

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AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

(b) Based on your conclusion from part (a), which of the two errors, Type I or Type II , could have been
made? Interpret the consequence of the error in context.

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 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

5. A research center conducted a national survey about teenage behavior. Teens were asked whether they had
consumed a soft drink in the past week. The following table shows the counts for three independent random
samples from major cities.

Baltimore Detroit San Diego Total

Yes 727 1,232 1,482 3,441
No 177 431 798 1,406
Total 904 1,663 2,280 4,847

(a) Suppose one teen is randomly selected from each city’s sample. A researcher claims that the
likelihood of selecting a teen from Baltimore who consumed a soft drink in the past week is less than the
likelihood of selecting a teen from either one of the other cities who consumed a soft drink in the past
week because Baltimore has the least number of teens who consumed a soft drink. Is the researcher’s
claim correct? Explain your answer.

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AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

(b) Consider the values in the table.

(i) Construct a segmented bar chart of relative frequencies based on the information in the table.

(ii) Which city had the smallest proportion of teens who consumed a soft drink in the previous week?
Determine the value of the proportion.

(c) Consider the inference procedure that is appropriate for investigating whether there is a difference
among the three cities in the proportion of all teens who consumed a soft drink in the past week.

(i) Identify the appropriate inference procedure.

(ii) Identify the hypotheses of the test.

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 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

Begin your response to QUESTION 6 on this page.

Part B
Question 6
Spend about 25 minutes on this part of the exam.
Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the correctness
of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. Attendance at games for a certain baseball team is being investigated by the team owner. The following
boxplots summarize the attendance, measured as average number of attendees per game, for 47 years of the
team’s existence. The boxplots include the 30 years of games played in the old stadium and the 17 years
played in the new stadium.

(a) Compare the distributions of average attendance between the old and new stadiums.

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AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

The following scatterplot shows average attendance versus year.

(b) Compare the trends in average attendance over time between the old and new stadium.

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 AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

(c) Consider the following scatterplots.

(i) Graph I shows the average attendance versus number of games won for each year. Describe the
relationship between the variables.

(ii) Graph II shows the same information as Graph I, but also indicates the old and new stadiums. Does
Graph II suggest that the rate at which attendance changes as number of games won increases is
different in the new stadium compared to the old stadium? Explain your reasoning.

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AP® Statistics 2021 Free-Response Questions

(d) Consider the three variables: number of games won, year, and stadium. Based on the graphs, explain
how one of those variables could be a confounding variable in the relationship between average
attendance and the other variables.

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 Begin your response to QUESTION 1 on this page.

STATISTICS
SECTION II
Total Time—1 hour and 30 minutes
6 Questions

Part A
Suggested Time—1 hour and 5 minutes
5 Questions
Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the correctness
of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

1. A biologist gathered data on the length, in millimeters (mm ), and the mass, in grams (g), for 11 bullfrogs. The
data are shown in Plot 1.

(a) Based on the scatterplot, describe the relationship between mass and length, in context.

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From the data, the biologist calculated the least-squares regression line for predicting mass from length. The
least-squares regression line is shown in Plot 2 .

(b) Identify and interpret the slope of the least-squares regression line in context.

(c) Interpret the coefficient of determination of the least-squares regression line, r 2 ª 0.819 , in context.

(d) From Plot 2 , consider the residuals of the 11 bullfrogs.

(i) Based on the plot, approximately what is the length and mass of the bullfrog with the largest absolute value
residual?

(ii) Does the least-squares regression line overestimate or underestimate the mass of the bullfrog identified in part
(d-i)? Explain your answer.

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2. A dermatologist will conduct an experiment to investigate the effectiveness of a new drug to treat acne. The
dermatologist has recruited 36 pairs of identical twins. Each person in the experiment has acne and each person in
the experiment will receive either the new drug or a placebo. After each person in the experiment uses either the
new drug or the placebo for 2 weeks, the dermatologist will evaluate the improvement in acne severity for each
person on a scale from 0 (no improvement) to 100 (complete cure).

(a) Identify the treatments, experimental units, and response variable of the experiment.

• Treatments:

• Experimental units:

• Response variable:

Each twin in the experiment has a severity of acne similar to that of the other twin. However, the severity of acne
differs from one twin pair to another.
(b) For the dermatologist’s experiment, describe a statistical advantage of using a matched-pairs design where
twins are paired rather than using a completely randomized design.

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(c) For the dermatologist’s experiment, describe how the treatments can be randomly assigned to people using a
matched-pairs design in which twins are paired.

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 Begin your response to QUESTION 3 on this page.

3. A machine at a manufacturing company is programmed to fill shampoo bottles such that the amount of shampoo
in each bottle is normally distributed with mean 0.60 liter and standard deviation 0.04 liter. Let the random
variable A represent the amount of shampoo, in liters, that is inserted into a bottle by the filling machine.

(a) A bottle is considered to be underfilled if it has less than 0.50 liter of shampoo. Determine the probability that
a randomly selected bottle of shampoo will be underfilled. Show your work.

After the bottles are filled, they are placed in boxes of 10 bottles per box. After the bottles are placed in the boxes,
several boxes are placed in a crate for shipping to a beauty supply warehouse. The manufacturing company’s
contract with the beauty supply warehouse states that one box will be randomly selected from a crate. If 2 or more
bottles in the selected box are underfilled, the entire crate will be rejected and sent back to the manufacturing
company.

(b) The beauty supply warehouse manager is interested in the probability that a crate shipped to the warehouse
will be rejected. Assume that the amounts of shampoo in the bottles are independent of each other.
(i) Define the random variable of interest for the warehouse manager and state how the random variable is
distributed.

(ii) Determine the probability that a crate will be rejected by the warehouse manager. Show your work.

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To reduce the number of crates rejected by the beauty supply warehouse manager, the manufacturing company is
considering adjusting the programming of the filling machine so that the amount of shampoo in each bottle is
normally distributed with mean 0.56 liter and standard deviation 0.03 liter.

(c) Would you recommend that the manufacturing company use the original programming of the filling machine
or the adjusted programming of the filling machine? Provide a statistical justification for your choice.

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 Begin your response to QUESTION 4 on this page.

4. A survey conducted by a national research center asked a random sample of 920 teenagers in the United States
how often they use a video streaming service. From the sample, 59% answered that they use a video streaming
service every day.

(a) Construct and interpret a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all teenagers in the United States who
would respond that they use a video streaming service every day.

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(b) Based on the confidence interval in part (a), do the sample data provide convincing statistical evidence that the
proportion of all teenagers in the United States who would respond that they use a video streaming service
every day is not 0.5? Justify your answer.

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 Begin your response to QUESTION 5 on this page.

5. Studies have shown that foods rich in compounds known as flavonoids help lower blood pressure. Researchers
conducted a study to investigate whether there was a greater reduction in blood pressure for people who consumed
dark chocolate, which contains flavonoids, than people who consumed white chocolate, which does not contain
flavonoids. Twenty-five healthy adults agreed to participate in the study and add 3.5 ounces of chocolate to their
daily diets. Of the 25 participants, 13 were randomly assigned to the dark chocolate group and the rest were
assigned to the white chocolate group. All participants had their blood pressure recorded, in millimeters of
mercury (mmHg), before adding chocolate to their daily diets and again 30 days after adding chocolate to their
daily diets.

The reduction in blood pressure (before minus after) for each of the participants in the two groups is shown in the
dotplots below.

(a) Determine and compare the medians of the reduction in blood pressure for the two groups.

The researchers found the mean reduction in blood pressure for those who consumed dark chocolate is
xdark = 6.08 mmHg and the mean reduction in blood pressure for those who consumed white chocolate is
x white = 0.42 mmHg.

(b) One researcher indicated that because the difference in sample means of 5.66 mmHg is greater than 0 there is
convincing statistical evidence to conclude that the population mean blood pressure reduction for those who
consume dark chocolate is greater than for those who consume white chocolate. Why might the researcher’s
conclusion, based only on the difference in sample means of 5.66 mmHg, not necessarily be true?

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A simulation was conducted to investigate whether there is a greater reduction of blood pressure for those who
consume dark chocolate than for those who consume white chocolate. The simulation was conducted under the
assumption that no difference exists. The results of 120 trials of the simulation are shown in the following dotplot.

(c) Use the results of the simulation to determine whether the results from the 25 participants in the study provide
convincing statistical evidence, at a 5 percent level of significance, that adding dark chocolate to a daily diet
will result in a greater reduction in blood pressure, on average, than adding white chocolate to a daily diet.
Justify your answer.

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 Begin your response to QUESTION 6 on this page.
STATISTICS
SECTION II, Part B
Suggested Time—25 minutes
1 Question
Directions: Show all your work. Indicate clearly the methods you use, because you will be scored on the correctness
of your methods as well as on the accuracy and completeness of your results and explanations.

6. To compare success rates for treating allergies at two clinics that specialize in treating allergy sufferers,
researchers selected random samples of patient records from the two clinics. The following table summarizes the
data.

Clinic A Clinic B Total

Unsuccessful treatment 51 33 84

Successful treatment 88 35 123

Total 139 68 207

(a) (i) Complete the following table by recording the relative frequencies of successful and unsuccessful
treatments at each clinic.

Clinic A Clinic B

Unsuccessful treatment

Successful treatment

(ii) Based on the relative frequency table in part (a-i), which clinic is more successful in treating allergy
sufferers? Justify your answer.

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(b) Based on the design of the study, would a statistically significant result allow the researchers to conclude that
receiving treatments at the clinic you selected in part (a-ii) causes a higher percentage of successful treatments
than at the other clinic? Explain your answer.

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A physician who worked at both clinics believed that it was important to separate the patients in the study by
severity of the patient’s allergy (severe or mild). The physician constructed the following mosaic plot. The values
in the mosaic plot represent the number of patients who were either successfully treated or unsuccessfully treated
in each allergy severity group within each clinic. For example, the value 78 represents the number of patients
successfully treated in the mild group within Clinic A.

Based on the mosaic plot, the physician concluded the following:

For mild allergy sufferers, Clinic B was more successful in treating allergies.

For severe allergy sufferers, Clinic B was more successful in treating allergies.

(c) (i) For each clinic, which allergy severity is treated more successfully? Justify your answer.

• Clinic A:

• Clinic B:

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(ii) For each clinic, which allergy severity is more likely to be treated? Justify your answer.
• Clinic A:

• Clinic B:

(d) Using your answers from part (c), give a reasonable explanation of why the more successful clinic identified in
part (a-ii) is the same as or different from the physician’s conclusion that Clinic B is more successful in
treating both severe and mild allergies.

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