3.8 Two friends want to take a summer holiday before going to college in the autumn. They are looking for somewhere with plenty of clubs where they can party all night. Unfortunately they have left it rather late to book and there are only two resorts, Medlena and Bistry, available within their budget. When they ask about the ages of the holiday-makers at these resorts their travel agent says the only thing he can tell them is that that the mean age of people going to Medlena is 19 whereas the mean age of visitors to Bistry is 22. Just as they are about to book holidays in Medlena because it seems to attract the sort of young crowd they want to be with the travel agent says. ‘I’ve got some more figures, the standard deviation of the ages of visitors to Medlena is 8 and the standard deviation of the ages of visitors to Bistry is 2’.

Should they change their minds on the basis of this new information, and if so, why?