GCSE Revision: Box Plots

GCSE Tier: Higher ANSWERS Target Grade: 6-7

1) A machine for weighing and packing 500 g of sugar is thought to be inaccurate.

To check this, the manufacturer takes 200 packs and weighs them.
The distribution of the weights is shown in the cumulative frequency diagram below.

Use the cumulative frequency diagram to find:

(a) The median. 497

(b) The lower quartile. 488

(c) The upper quartile. 506

(d) Use the cumulative frequency diagram and your answers to part (a) to draw a box plot of
the data. Draw your answer on the grid below.

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2) Members of an athletics club took part in a speed trial.

The cumulative frequency diagram below shows the times taken by 80 male athletes.

Draw a box plot on the grid below the cumulative frequency diagram, to illustrate the
distribution of times taken by the male athletes.

Boxplot with median 70

Boxplot with lower quartile 64 and upper quartile 79
Whiskers to 50 and to 100

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 GCSE Revision: Box Plots
GCSE Tier: Higher ANSWERS Target Grade: 6-7

3) The cumulative frequency diagram below shows the heights of 80 girls from Year 11.
On the grid, below the cumulative frequency diagram, draw a box plot to illustrate the
distribution of the heights of the girls.

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 GCSE Revision: Box Plots
GCSE Tier: Higher ANSWERS Target Grade: 6-7

4) A certain species of plant grows in two locations, one sheltered and the other exposed.
The two box plots below show the distributions of heights in the two locations.

Make two comparisons between the heights in the two locations.

The median height of the sheltered plants is greater than the median height of the exposed
plant. The interquartile range of the sheltered plants is greater than the interquartile range
of the exposed plants, suggesting the exposed plant heights are less varied.

5) Two maths classes take a test.

The scores for class 11A are summarised in the box plot below.

(a) Work out the interquartile range of these scores.

23 – 16 = 7
The scores for class 11B are summarised in the table below.

Lowest value Lower quartile Median Upper quartile Highest value

8 19 23 31 42

(b) On the grid below, draw the box plot for the scores of class 11B.

(c) Make two different comparisons between the scores of the two classes.
On average, class 11B achieved higher scores. Class 11A were more consistent.

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 GCSE Revision: Box Plots
GCSE Tier: Higher ANSWERS Target Grade: 6-7

6) Two teachers are discussing whether a group of students spend longer on their Maths or
English coursework. Here is a box plot for the time spent on Maths coursework by 10
students.

These are the times, in hours, spent by the same group on their English coursework.

8 9 8 9 10 12 12 9 10 7

Use the data to make two comparisons between the length of time spent on the
coursework in the two subjects.

First arrange the data in order of size:

7 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 12 12

Using the data above and reading form the box plot the following information can be obtained:

Maths Cwk English Cwk

Smallest Data Value 3 7
Lower Quartile 7 8
Median 8 9
Upper Quartile 9 10
Largest Data Value 20 12

From this table a box plot for English can be drawn:

Students for English have an average of 9 hours compared to an average length of 8 hours for
English. Therefore students spend longer ion their English coursework.
The interquartile range of the English and Maths coursework is the same, suggesting that the
subjects are similar in the way they are spread.
Note that the range for Maths (17) is much larger than the range for English (5). However it may be
that as few as two students have distorted the appearance of these box plots.

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