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Grade 8

6.03 Two-way tables

Lesson

Two-way tables

Two-way tables represent data that is classified by two criteria. If the first criterion was a student's main writing hand, and the other was whether or not they enjoy English, we could produce a table like this:

  Right Left
Enjoys English $4$4 $9$9
Doesn't enjoy English $2$2 $15$15
The columns show the writing hand, and the rows show their enjoyment of English.

To read a two way table, look at the column and row that a number is in to find the right cell, the box where a single number is written. For example there are $9$9 students who are left-handed and enjoy English (top-right cell), and $2$2 students who are right handed that don't enjoy English (bottom-left cell).

Tables will often inclue totals of each column, each row, and the total sum in the corner:

  Right Left Total
Enjoys English $4$4 $9$9 $13$13
Doesn't enjoy English $2$2 $15$15 $17$17
Total $6$6 $24$24 $30$30
The categories should always be chosen so that each data point goes in exactly one of the cells.

Worked example

example 1

A pet store sells three types of animals. Some of them have spots, some do not. This two-way table represents the animals they have for sale one day:

  Cat Dog Fish
Has spots $7$7 $4$4 $11$11
No spots $5$5 $10$10 $8$8
If the store owner chooses an animal at random, what is the probability that they will select a fish?

Think: We can use the following formula to find the probability:

$\text{Probability}=\frac{\text{Number of favourable outcomes}}{\text{Total number of outcomes}}$Probability=Number of favourable outcomesTotal number of outcomes

We will need to find the total number of animals and the number of fish to substitute into the formula.

Do: The number of spotted fish is the number in the top-right cell, and the number of fish without spots is the number in the bottom-right cell. Adding these together tells us that there are $11+8=19$11+8=19 fish altogether.

The total number of animals is all the numbers added together, $7+4+11+5+10+8=45$7+4+11+5+10+8=45.

This means the probability is $\frac{19}{45}$1945.

 

Two way tables and Venn diagrams

A two way table often presents information that could also be presented with a Venn diagram. We can convert between a two way table and a Venn diagram by matching up their different parts.

This two-way table represents the handedness of students, and whether or not they entered the Talent Show:

To represent this information in a Venn diagram, we choose one row and one column to become circles. Here we chose the column marked "Left" and the row marked "Entered":

 

  • The number that is in both chosen categories $\left(4\right)$(4) goes in the overlap of the two circles.
  • The other value in the "Entered" row $\left(9\right)$(9) represents the "Entered and right-handed" students, and goes in the "Entered" circle outside the overlap.
  • The other value in the "Left" column $\left(2\right)$(2) represents the "Didn't enter and left-handed" students, and goes in the "Left-handed" circle outside the overlap.
  • Any cells that are in neither the highlighted row nor the highlighted column $\left(15\right)$(15)goes into the surrounding box, outside both circles.

 

Worked example

example 2

Using this Venn diagram:

Create a two-way table representing the same information.

 

Think: Each circle represents a category, so each circle name should be a heading - one a row heading, and one a column heading.

The numbers outside the "Cut" circle are "Not cut", and the numbers outside the "Dyed" circle are "Not dyed", so they should be the other headings.

Do: The empty two way table will look like this:

  Cut Not cut
Dyed    
Not dyed    
Using the Venn diagram we can fill in the table by looking at the corresponding regions. The top left cell is for the number of people who had their hair cut and dyed, which was $35$35 people. The bottom left cell is for the number of people who had their hair cut but not dyed, which was $12$12. Filling in the rest of the table like this gives us the final result:
  Cut Not cut
Dyed $35$35 $20$20
Not dyed $12$12 $3$3

Practice questions

Question 1

$50$50 students were asked whether or not they were allergic to nuts and dairy. The two way table is provided below.

  Allergic to Nuts Not Allergic to Nuts
Allergic to Dairy $6$6 $11$11
Not Allergic to Dairy $6$6 $27$27
  1. How many students are allergic to nuts?

  2. How many students are allergic to nuts or dairy, or both?

  3. How many students are allergic to at most one of the two things?

Question 2

A student makes a Venn diagram of students who are late to school, and students who catch the bus to school.

  1. Complete the following table:

      Late Not late
    Caught bus $\editable{}$ $\editable{}$
    Didn't catch bus $\editable{}$ $\editable{}$
Question 3

Students in Irene's class were asked if they owned a dog and asked if they owned a snake. The following two way table shows that information.

  Owns a dog Doesn't own a dog
Owns a snake $2$2 $3$3
Doesn't own a snake $13$13 $11$11

 

  1. Which of the following Venn diagrams represents the information provided in the two way table?

    A

    B

    C

    D

 

Probability calculations

Many situations in probability can be organised into Venn diagrams or two-way tables to determine the size of different groups and do calculations.

Worked example

EXAMPLE 3

There are $124$124 students at a school, $74$74 of them attended the school sports carnival, of which $34$34 were primary students and $40$40 were senior students. There are a total of $80$80 primary students at school. How many senior students didn't attend the sports carnival?

Think: This information can be placed in a two-way table that includes a "Total" column and a "Total" row.

Do: Create a two-way table and fill in the values given by the question.

  Primary Secondary Total
Attended $34$34 $40$40 $74$74
Didn't attend
Total $80$80 $124$124

In the first and the last columns we have one piece of information missing, so we can find the values to go into those cells by using subtraction. The number of primary students who attended $\left(34\right)$(34) plus the number of primary students who didn't attend $\left(\text{blank}\right)$(blank) will be equal to the total number of primary students $\left(80\right)$(80), so

$\text{Number of primary student who didn't attend}=80-34=46$Number of primary student who didn't attend=8034=46.

Similarly, looking at the "Total" column,

$\text{Number of students who didn't attend}=124-74=50$Number of students who didn't attend=12474=50.

We write these values in the table:

  Primary Secondary Total
Attended $34$34 $40$40 $74$74
Didn't attend $46$46 $50$50
Total $80$80 $124$124

Now we can use the numbers in the rows in a similar way to find the last two values:

$\text{Number of secondary students who didn't attend}=50-46=4$Number of secondary students who didn't attend=5046=4,

$\text{Number of secondary students}=124-80=44$Number of secondary students=12480=44.

Here is the completed table:

  Primary Secondary Total
Attended $34$34 $40$40 $74$74
Didn't attend $46$46 $4$4 $50$50
Total $80$80 $44$44 $124$124

We can now answer the original question: There were $4$4 senior students who didn't attend the sports carnival.

Practice questions

Question 4

In their class $5$5 people play both football and tennis, $13$13 people in total play tennis, and $11$11 in total play football.

 

  1. How many people only play football?

  2. How many people play only one sport?

  3. If a random student is chosen from the group what is the probability that the student only plays tennis?

Question 5

In a study, some people were asked whether they were musicians or not.

$25$25 responders said they were a musician, of which $10$10 were children. $25$25 children said they were not musicians, and $13$13 adults said they are not musicians.

  1. How many people were in the study?

  2. What proportion of responders are musicians?

  3. What proportion of adults are musicians?

 

Outcomes

8.D2.1

Solve various problems that involve probability, using appropriate tools and strategies, including Venn and tree diagrams.

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