Question

Hello,

In a class of 24 students, every student flips fairly two coins 40 times each and records the results. Assume that the class obtained the expected results when they conducted the experiment.

a. Make a bar graph illustrating the combined class results

b. explain why an individual student's results might be different from the class results

Answer 1

a) There are only three possible results of flipping two coins: 2 heads, 2 tails, or one of each.

You have a choice of either faking the results using probabililty theory, or doing the experiment yourself by flipping 40 x 2 x 24 times, but that would take a while. I would do the forty two-coin flipping at least ten times and see what the trends are.

The most likely result is 20 with one of each, 10 with 2 heads, and 10 with 2 tails. But other results are also possible, just less likely

b) There is no reason that one student's results would equal the 24-student class average.