Library books

Library books

Auto-markingPencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Further Resources
This task is about reading a table.

A librarian kept a count of the kind of books borrowed from the library for a month. This is shown in the table below.

 

Kind of Books

No. Borrowed
Adventure
Mystery
Romance
Poetry
Biographies
Magazines
 
 
Total
600
1200
200
300
900
400
_____
 
3600
 
 

Question 1Change answer

a)  What kind of book is most likely to be chosen by the next person?  
  AdventureMysteryRomancePoetryBiographiesMagazines

Question 1Change answer

b)  What kind of book was chosen by 1 out of every 6 borrowers in that month?
     AdventureMysteryRomancePoetryBiographiesMagazines

Question 3Change answer

c)  What are the chances that the next book to be borrowed is a biography?

      

Question 4Change answer

d)  What are the chances that the next book to be borrowed is an adventure or a mystery book?

      

Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pencil and paper or online with auto-marking.
Level:
4
Curriculum info: 
Maths, Statistics, Probability
Keywords: 
probability, frequency tables, table interpretation
Description of task: 
Students are asked four short questions that require them to use a table that contains a count of the kind of books borrowed from a library for a month.
Curriculum Links: 
This resource can be used to help to identify students' understanding of ordering outcomes and writing likelihoods as fractions, decimals or percentages.
 
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Interpreting statistical and chance situations, sets 4-5
within the Mathematics Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
 

Y8 (11/1997)
a) Mystery. very easy
b) Adventure. difficult
c) 9 in 36 or 9/36 or 1 in 4 or 1/4 or .25 or 25% or equivalent probability. very difficult
d) 1 in 2 or 1/2 or .5 or 50% or equivalent probability. difficult