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Question

A student appearing for an exam is declared to have failed the exam if his/her score is less than half the median score. This implies

The correct answer is
it is possible that no one fails.

The condition for failing the exam is defined as having a score less than half the median score.

Mathematically, a student fails if:
Score < Median Score / 2

Analyzing the Failing Condition Implications

Let's analyze the options based on this condition:

  • Option 1 & 2 state specific fractions ($1/4$) of students or scores relative to the maximum score. The failing condition, however, depends solely on the median score, not a fixed fraction of students or the maximum score. Therefore, these statements are not necessarily true.
  • Option 3 relates passing to scoring more than half the maximum score. This is incorrect because the passing/failing threshold is determined by the median, not the maximum score. A student could score above half the maximum but still fail if the median is very high.
  • Option 4 states that it is possible that no one fails. This is plausible. Consider a scenario where all students achieve the same score, say $S$. In this case, the median score is also $S$. The failing condition becomes Score < $S$ / 2. Since every student scored $S$, and $S \ge S/2$ (for non-negative scores), no student's score is less than half the median. Thus, no one fails.

Conclusion on Possibility of No Failures

Since we can construct a scenario (e.g., all students scoring the same) where the condition Score < Median Score / 2 is not met by any student, it is indeed possible that no one fails the exam.

Therefore, the correct implication is that it is possible that no one fails.

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Important Questions from Elementary Statistics (Notes)

  1. Let $X_1, X_2, X_3$ be a random sample of size 3 from an absolutely continuous distribution that is symmetric about 0. For $i=1,2,3$, let $R_i$ denote the rank of $|X_i|$ among $|X_1|, |X_2|$ and $|X_3|$. 

    If $T^+ = \sum_{i=1, X_i>0}^3 R_i$

     is the Willcoxon signed-rank statistic, then which of the following statements are true?, 

  2. Which of the following is the first step in calculating the median of data set?
    1. Average the middle two values of the data set
    2. Array the data
    3. Determine the relative weights of the data values in terms of importance
    4. Find the average distance of the observations in the data set from the mean
  3. If the median of a data is 61.54 less than its mode, then the median of the data exceeds its mean by _____. (Use the empirical formula to find the answer)
  4. The mean marks of the following distribution is:

    Marks Obtained   No. of Students
    8115
    354
    733
    5616
  5. The geometric mean of 100 observations is 25. If each observation is multiplied by 4, what will be the new geometric mean?
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