Try it on paper first. A hint, the key idea and the worked solution are here when you need them.
A raffle uses tickets, numbered in an arithmetic sequence: the first ticket is numbered , and each ticket after it is more than the one before, so the numbers are . The organiser wants to know how spread out the ticket numbers are. The variance of the numbers on all the tickets turns out to be . She does not remember how many tickets there are. You can find from the variance, because the spread of an arithmetic list depends only on its common difference and its length. Use the sums and to show that the variance of the whole numbers is . Then find , the mean of the ticket numbers and their standard deviation.
and . For a sample, divide the sum of squared deviations by to get .
Have you tried it?
Work it out on paper first. It is fine to get stuck or make a mistake: that is how we learn. When you are ready, go through the solution one step at a time, and check each step against your own.
Step 1. The variance of . The mean is . The mean of the squares is . So .
Step 2. The ticket numbers. They are , that is for . Adding does not change the spread, and multiplying by multiplies the variance by . So the variance is .
Step 3. Find . gives , so and .
Step 4. The mean. The middle ticket is the sixth, numbered , and the numbers are symmetric about it. So the mean is .
Step 5. The standard deviation. .
Answer: tickets, mean and standard deviation about .
Watch out. The first term does not matter for the variance. Only the common difference and the number of tickets matter.
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