BTEC Assignment Brief (QCF)

Qualification BTEC Level 3 90 Credit Diploma in Applied Science

Unit number and title 8: Using Statistics for Science

Learning aim(s) (For

NQF only)

Assignment title Assignment 1 Statistical Calculations

Assessor Zamir Khaliq

Issue date 07/03/2018

Hand in deadline 28/03/2019

As part of your study programme, the college is working to get you work
Vocational Scenario or experience in a range of scientific careers. During this you will be asked to
Context complete statistical operations and calculations, below are a range of
questions from different scientific fields that previous students have faced.

Task 1

A manufacturing company is developing a device for measuring light

intensity. So far, they have built two prototypes and tested them both. They
used a light source with a known light intensity to test both devices. The
data below shows the repeated measurements taken from each device. The
company have asked you to use the data and carry out statistical
calculations to tell them which detector is more reliable.

a) Work out the standard deviation for each of the data sets and
standard error with confidence limits.

Device a readings (candelas) Device b readings (candelas)

52 46
36 42
80 44
Task 1 22 45
30 43

b) Determine the mean, mode and median for each set of data

Probability

1) In a College, the ratio of the number of Boys to Girls is 3:2

30% of the Boys were over the age of 17.
60% of the Girls were over the age of 17.

What percentage of all the students in the college are over the age
of 17?
2) 85 students were surveyed: 50 liked Physics
30 liked Chemistry
15 people liked neither of the
subjects
 Find the probability of a student whom likes a) both subjects b)
Just Physics c) Just Chemistry

3) Hazika sometimes goes to a sweet shop on her way to school,

if not she walks straight to school. On her way home from school she
sometimes goes just to the park.
On her way to school the probability that she goes to a sweet
shop is 0.4. On her way back from school, the probability that
she goes to the park is 0.3.

a) Find the probability that Hazika goes to the sweet shop on

her way to school and then the park on
her way back.
b) Find the probability that Hazika goes straight to school and
on her way back she visits the park.

This provides evidence for P1

Checklist of evidence Written assessment
required
Criteria covered by this task:
Unit/Criteria
To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:
reference
P1 carry out statistical calculations to investigate a scientific problem

Task 2

Rutherford's Alpha Scattering Experiment

(1) When gold foil is bombarded by alpha particles it is found

that most of the particles pass through the foil without
significant change of direction or loss of energy.

Rutherford found that the majority of alpha particles passed

straight through and only a few were deflected by an angle
greater than 90 degrees to the direction of the incident
Task 2 beam and were deflected back towards the alpha source. It
was discovered later on that the typical dimensions of the
nucleus and atom are 10-14 and 10-10 respectively.

By considering these dimensions, work out the probability

and hence the number of alpha particles which would
deflect by more than 90 degrees if 30,000 particles were
fired at a gold foil.

Cystic Fibrosis
 (2) Two potential parents are very keen to have children;
unfortunately, both parents are carriers of a particularly
unpleasant genetically inherited disease called cystic fibrosis.
Of course, they are worried about whether their children will
be healthy and normal. If we label "A" as being the dominant
normal allele and "a" as the recessive abnormal one that is
responsible for cystic fibrosis (i.e., both parents have both
genes (Aa)

1. Work out the probability of the parents having:

I. a completely normal homozygous child (AA)
II. a healthy heterozygous carrier child (Aa)
III. a child with cystic fibrosis who will most likely
eventually die from the condition (aa)

This provides evidence for M1

Checklist of evidence Written Assessment
required
Criteria covered by this task:
Unit/Criteria
To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:
reference
M1 perform a calculation using probability to investigate a scientific problem

Task 3
a) For the secondary data provided you must a) describe the type of
distribution b) calculate the standard deviation for each set of
data.

b) Collect primary data which shows the lengths of leaves from a single
tree or plant.

• Display this data in a frequency table.

• Plot your data as a histogram.

Task 3
• Hopefully, the frequency distribution will be approximately a
Gaussian distribution (aka a bell curve or a normal distribution).
Sketch this curve onto your histogram.

• From your frequency distribution curve interpret:

1. The mean height for the leaves in your collection

2. The standard deviation
The heights that are one standard deviation above and below the mean
This part provides evidence for D1
Checklist of evidence Written assessment
required
Criteria covered by this task:
Unit/Criteria
To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:
reference
D1 interpret shapes of distributions in scientific data
 Task 4

Suppose that we want to test the results of a Mendelian genetic cross. We start with 2
parent fruit flies of genotype AABB and aabb (where A and a represent the dominant and
recessive alleles of one gene, and B and b represent the dominant and recessive alleles
of another gene).

A = red eyes, a = white eyes, B = normal wings, b = stubby wings.

We know that all of the first generation of these parents will have genotype AaBb
and that their phenotype will display both dominant alleles (e.g. in fruit flies all the
first generation will have red eyes rather than white eyes, and normal wings rather
than stubby wings – see picture).

This F1 generation will produce 4 types of gamete (AB, Ab, aB and ab), and when we
self-cross the F1 generation we will end up with a variety of F2 genotypes (see the table
below).

Gametes Gametes
AB Ab aB ab
AB AABB AABb AaBB AaBb
Ab AABb AAbb AaBb Aabb
aB AaBB AaBb aaBB aaBb
ab AaBb Aabb aaBb aabb
Task 4 An investigation is carried out to test whether the above table is an accurate
representation of the reality. The results are taken by observing 80 first generation
fruit flies. All of these genotypes fall into 4 phenotypes. According to Mendelian
genetics the expected ratio of these phenotypes is 9:3:3:1

a) Copy the table below. The observed values have been recorded. By looking
at the genetic cross table above write down the expected values in your table.
This is called the null hypothesis.
b) Calculate χ2 for the results in the table.

Phenotype

AB Ab aB ab Total

Observed numbers (O) 40 20 16 4 80

Expected numbers (E)

O-E

(O-E)2

(O-E)2 / E

c) Calculate the number of degrees of freedom (df = number of categories – 1)

d) Using the table below, explain whether your result for χ2 indicate whether the
results the observed result match your null hypothesis or not. Briefly explain
your answer.

Evaluate the validity of your interpretation of your χ2 test

 To do this you need to:

e) Consider and explain the limitations of carrying out a χ2 test.

f) Explain how you think you could check your results against your null
hypothesis and give more information regarding the relationship than the χ2
test gives.
This provides evidence for P2, M2 and D2

Checklist of
Written assessment
evidence
required
Unit/Criteria
To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:
reference
P2 perform a chi-squared test to support a scientific hypothesis
M2 interpret the results of the chi-squared test
D2 evaluate the validity of the interpretation of the results of the chi-squared test

Sources of information
to support you with this
Assignment Websites

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize
www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise
www.gcseguide.co.uk
www.mathstutor.com

Other assessment eg, work sheets, risk assessments, case study

materials attached to
this Assignment Brief

FOR NQF LEVEL 2 ONLY: If you have not achieved the Level 2 criteria, your work will
be assessed to determine if the following Level 1 criteria have been met.
Criterion
To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to: Unit
reference