The lengths, t minutes, of 242 phone calls made by a family over a period of 1 week are summarised in the frequency table below.
| Length of phone call (t minutes) |
0 < t ≤ 1 |
1 < t ≤ 2 |
2 < t ≤ 5 |
5 < t ≤ 10 |
10 < t ≤ 30 |
| Frequency |
14 |
46 |
102 |
a |
40 |
- Find the value of a.
- Calculate an estimate of the mean length of these phone calls.
- On the grid, draw a histogram to illustrate the data in the table.
Solution
Solution:
| Length of phone call (t minutes) |
0 < t ≤ 1 |
1 < t ≤ 2 |
2 < t ≤ 5 |
5 < t ≤ 10 |
10 < t ≤ 30 |
| Frequency |
14 |
46 |
102 |
40 |
40 |
(1) The total frequency is 242, so:
\(14 + 46 + 102 + a + 40 = 242\)
\(a = 40\)
(2) To estimate the mean, take midpoints of each class: 0.5, 1.5, 3.5, 7.5, 20.
| Midpoint (x) |
0.5 |
1.5 |
3.5 |
7.5 |
20 |
| Frequency (f) |
14 |
46 |
102 |
40 |
40 |
| \(f \times x\) |
7 |
69 |
357 |
300 |
800 |
Total \(f \times x = 7 + 69 + 357 + 300 + 800 = 1533\).
Mean \(= \dfrac{1533}{242} \approx 6.3\) minutes.
(3) The histogram can be drawn with the following class widths and frequencies per unit:
| Class width |
1 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
20 |
| Frequency density |
14 |
46 |
34 |
8 |
2 |
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