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CAIE A-Level Biology A2 18.2.5 Spearmans and Pearsons Correlation Questions

Practise describing the direction and strength of biological associations from scattergraphs, tables and coefficients. Statistical-test selection, coefficient calculation and critical-value inference are reconciled to the dedicated statistics nodes.

Syllabus
2028–2030
Course
Biology 9700
Level
A2

Exam points

  • Interpret scattergraphs and correlation direction or strength as positive, negative, strong or absent in biological contexts.

CAIE A-Level Biology A2 18.2.5 Spearmans and Pearsons Correlation Questions question 1

[Maximum number: 2]

The soft rush plant, Juncus effusus, grows in many habitats in Northern Europe. An investigation was carried out to assess whether there was a relationship between the height of soft rush plants and the altitude at which they grow on exposed hillsides.

The mean height of 10 soft rush plants was calculated at each of eight different altitudes.
The results are shown in Table 8.1.

Table 8.1

Table 8.1

The statistical test, Spearman's rank correlation (rs)\left(r_{s}\right), was applied to find out if there was a relationship between the altitude and the mean height of the soft rush plants.

Use your value for rsr_{s} to evaluate the relationship between the altitude and the mean height of the soft rush plants.

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