Question

What's the Error? An analysis showed that 0.06 per cent of the T-shirts made by one company were defective. A student says this is 6 out of every 100. What is the student’s error?

a. The student's error is misinterpretation of the percentage.
b. The student's error is miscalculation of the percentage.
c. The student's error is underestimating the defect rate.
d. The student's error is overestimating the defect rate.

Answer 1

The student misinterpreted the percentage and thought that 0.06 per cent meant 6 out of every 100 T-shirts were defective, when it actually means 6 out of 10,000, thereby overestimating the defect rate.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student's error is misunderstanding how to interpret the given percentage. When the analysis shows that 0.06 per cent of T-shirts made by a company are defective, it means that for every 100 T-shirts, there are expected to be 0.06 defects, or in other words, 6 out of every 10,000 T-shirts. The student incorrectly interpreted this as 6 out of every 100, which is significantly overestimating the defect rate. Thus, the correct answer to the student's question is d. The student's error is overestimating the defect rate.