Date | November 2020 | Marks available | 1 | Reference code | 20N.1.SL.TZ0.7 |
Level | Standard level | Paper | Paper 1 | Time zone | TZ0 / no time zone |
Command term | Question number | 7 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
The chart shows ranges of body mass index (BMI) for children and teenagers.
[Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, About Child & Teen BMI. Available at:
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/childrens_bmi/about_childrens_bmi.html.]
A 9-year-old boy has a height of 120 cm and weighs 28.8 kg. What weight category is he in according to his BMI?
A. Underweight
B. Healthy
C. Overweight
D. Obese
Markscheme
C
Examiners report
Many candidates found this question hard and fewer than 30 % answered it correctly. It was necessary to calculate BMI using the usual formula. If candidates could not remember this, the units on the y-axis revealed that body mass must be divided by height squared. If a candidate failed to convert the boy’s height from centimetres to metres, they would have got an unrealistically small value for BMI, prompting a rethink. The figures for height and mass were chosen to make the arithmetic as easy as possible.