A student is performing measurements in the chemistry laboratory and recording the results in a lab report. The student performs the experiment four times and records the mean x of the four measurement trials. Suppose that the chemistry teacher has found that ? = 12 milligrams from previous similar experiments. (a) What is the standard deviation of the student's mean result? (That is, if the student kept on making four measurements and averaging them, what would be the standard deviation of all the x values?)  mg (b) How many times must the student perform the measurement to reduce the standard deviation of x to 2? n =  (c) Explain to someone who knows no statistics the advantage of reporting the average of several measurements rather than the result of a single measurement. -The average of several measurements will always be an unbiased estimate of the mean. -The average of several measurements is more likely than a single measurement to be close to the mean.     -The result of a single measurement will never be close to the mean. -Taking several measurements reduces the likelihood of reporting error.

Glencoe Algebra 1, Student Edition, 9780079039897, 0079039898, 2018
18th Edition
ISBN:9780079039897
Author:Carter
Publisher:Carter
Chapter10: Statistics
Section10.4: Distributions Of Data
Problem 19PFA
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A student is performing measurements in the chemistry laboratory and recording the results in a lab report. The student performs the experiment four times and records the mean x of the four measurement trials. Suppose that the chemistry teacher has found that ? = 12 milligrams from previous similar experiments.

(a) What is the standard deviation of the student's mean result? (That is, if the student kept on making four measurements and averaging them, what would be the standard deviation of all the x values?)
 mg

(b) How many times must the student perform the measurement to reduce the standard deviation of x to 2?
n = 


(c) Explain to someone who knows no statistics the advantage of reporting the average of several measurements rather than the result of a single measurement.
-The average of several measurements will always be an unbiased estimate of the mean.
-The average of several measurements is more likely than a single measurement to be close to the mean.    
-The result of a single measurement will never be close to the mean.
-Taking several measurements reduces the likelihood of reporting error.
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