CCTST Numeracy & Quantitative Reasoning 3

Question 1

A politician states: 'Our city's test scores rank in the top 10 nationally.' The city has 500 school districts nationwide. How many districts rank at or above this city?

Accepted Answer

50

Answer

10

Answer

5

Answer

490

Question 2

A research report states 'the correlation between ice cream sales and drowning rates is r = 0.9.' What is the most critical thinking–appropriate interpretation?

Accepted Answer

Both variables likely increase in summer due to hot weather

Answer

Eating ice cream causes drowning

Answer

Drowning causes people to buy ice cream

Answer

The data must be incorrect

Question 3

If you flip a fair coin 10 times and get heads all 10 times, what is the probability of getting heads on the 11th flip?

Accepted Answer

0.5

Answer

Nearly 0

Answer

Nearly 1

Answer

Depends on past results

Question 4

A company reports a 300% increase in profits. If profits were $10,000 last year, what are they now?

Accepted Answer

$40,000

Answer

$30,000

Answer

$310,000

Answer

$13,000

Question 5

A chart shows that Country A has 2,000 doctors for 1 million people, and Country B has 1,000 doctors for 400,000 people. Which has more doctors per capita?

Accepted Answer

Country B

Answer

Country A

Answer

They are equal

Answer

Cannot be determined

Question 6

An average (mean) is presented without a measure of variability. Why is this information incomplete for critical evaluation?

Accepted Answer

The mean alone cannot reveal how spread out the data are

Answer

The mean is always inaccurate without variability

Answer

Variability replaces the need for a mean

Answer

A larger mean always indicates better performance

Question 7

A health agency reports that a vaccine is '95% effective.' A critic claims '5% still get sick, so it doesn't work well.' Which quantitative reasoning error does the critic make?

Accepted Answer

Misinterpreting relative effectiveness as absolute failure

Answer

Correctly identifying that 5% failure is unacceptable

Answer

Using the wrong percentage in the calculation

Answer

Confusing causation with correlation