Topic Exploration Pack

Fallacies in Statistic

Activity Sheet 1

Day/Period / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Monday / Quantitative Reasoning / ICT / Chemistry / FREE
Tuesday / Art / FREE / FREE / Chemistry
Wednesday / FREE / Quantitative Reasoning / Art / ICT
Thursday / FREE / ICT / FREE / Art
Friday / Chemistry / FREE / Quantitative Reasoning / FREE

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Your Task

Based on the theoretical probabilities of the people in the room your job is to form a statistical argument for the prosecution team and the defence team to illustrate the Prosecutor’s Fallacy. The student population of the city is approximately 1 million. Present your argument in the form of a poster showing both arguments.

Subject / No. of Students
Maths / 63
Chemistry / 46
Biology / 52
Psychology / 82
Physics / 32
English Language / 69
English Literature / 63
History / 23
Geography / 21
RE / 18
Government and Politics / 17
Quantitative Reasoning / 21
Art / 25
Music / 11
ICT / 43
Computing / 28
Photography / 14
Law / 18
Economics / 32
Business Studies / 38

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Activity Sheet 3

Variable A / Variable B
1 / Height of a person / 28 / Amount of fish eaten
2 / Intelligence (IQ) / 29 / The amount of exercise a person gets
3 / Age / 30 / The number of rats in the street
4 / The number of times you are late / 31 / Number of times you vote on X factor
5 / Time it takes to get to school / 32 / Sea levels each year
6 / Number of goals scored in a season / 33 / Amount of revision in hours
7 / Number of homework tasks completed / 34 / Salary for a year
8 / Amount of alcohol drunk / 35 / Number of hours of sunlight a person is exposed to
9 / Test score at English / 36 / Number of days to Christmas
10 / The amount of Big Macs bought / 37 / Number of words in your vocabulary
11 / Amount of coffee drunk each day / 38 / Chances of disease
12 / Number of times you don't do homework / 39 / How 'happy' you feel
13 / Shoe size / 40 / Amount of work done
14 / How much of a football fan someone is / 41 / Amount of money spent in the canteen each year
15 / Number of grey hairs / 42 / Number of cars you have
16 / Ability at Music / 43 / Amount of TV watched
17 / Distance from home to school / 44 / Money spent each year
18 / Average speed of a person over 100m / 45 / The number of friends you have
19 / Number of friends on Facebook / 46 / Number of girlfriends you have
20 / Amount of water drunk each day / 47 / Number of boyfriends you have
21 / Number of mobile phones you have / 48 / Amount of times being sent to withdrawal
22 / Average weight of a person / 49 / Number of detentions you get
23 / Hours of sleep per night / 50 / The number of times you haven't bought the correct equipment to school
24 / Temperature of skin / 51 / Number of holidays a year
25 / Number of legs / 52 / How many hours you watch TV a day
26 / Number of eyes / 53 / How many computer games you have
27 / Number of books you own / 54 / Life expectancy

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Activity Sheet 4

Go onto the website:

to play the sheep dash game.

Play the game 3 times and record the average time in the table below (First Test). Calculate the average of the three averages and record it in the total cell.

Repeat the experiment and record your outcomes again in the table below (Second test).

First Test

Go / 1 / 2 / 3 / Total
Average

Class Average:

Worse 3 Averages:

Best 3 Averages:

Second Test

Go / 1 / 2 / 3 / Total
Average

Class Average:

Worse 3 Averages:

Best 3 Averages:

What do you notice about the change in averages from the 1st to the 2nd test?

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