Chapter 3 Numerical Descriptive Measures

1) The terms central location or central tendency refer to the way quantitative data tend to
cluster around some middle or central value. (True/False)

2) Mark's grade on the recent business statistics test was an 85 on a scale of 0–100. Based on this
information we can conclude that Mark's grade was in the 85th percentile in his class.
(True/False)

3) When working with grouped data, the class median is the value in the middle of the class and
can be found by taking the average of the endpoints for each class. (True/False)

4) Which of the following is the most influenced by outliers?

A) Mode
B) Median
C) 75th percentile
D) Arithmetic mean

5) The Boom company has recently decided to raise the salaries of all employees by 10%. Which
of the following is (are) expected to be affected by this raise?
A) Mean and mode only
B) Mean and median only
C) Mode and median only
D) Mean, median, and mode

6) The owner of a company has recently decided to raise the salary of one employee, who was
already making the highest salary, by 20%. Which of the following is(are) expected to be
affected by this raise?
A) Mean only
B) Median only
C) Mean and median only
D) Mean, median, and mode

7) Which five values are graphed on a box plot?

A) Min, Quintile 1, Mean, Quintile 3, Max
B) Min, Quartile 1, Mean, Quartile 3, Max
C) Min, Quintile 1, Median, Quintile 3, Max
D) Min, Quartile 1, Median, Quartile 3, Max

8) What is the interquartile range?

A) Q3 – Q1
B) Max – Min
C) Mean – Median
D) All values between Q1 and Q3

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9) Calculate the interquartile range from the following data: 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 18.
A) 5
B) 6
C) 10
D) 17

10) As of September 30, the earnings per share (EPS) of five firms in the beverages industry are
as follows:

1.13 2.41 1.52 1.40 0.41

The 25th percentile and the 75th percentile of the EPS are the closest to ________.
A) 0.77 and 1.97
B) 0.91 and 1.77
C) 1.77 and 0.91
D) 1.97 and 0.77

11) What is the relationship between the variance and the standard deviation?
A) The standard deviation is the absolute value of the variance.
B) The variance is the absolute value of the standard deviation.
C) The variance is the positive square root of the standard deviation.
D) The standard deviation is the positive square root of the variance.

12) Which of the following statements about the mean absolute deviation (MAD) is the most
accurate?
A) It is the square root of the standard deviation.
B) It can be a positive number or a negative number.
C) It is measured in the same units as the original data.
D) It is the arithmetic mean of the squared deviations from the mean.

13) An analyst gathered the following information about the net profit margins of companies in
two industries:

Net Profit Margin Industry A Industry B

Mean 15.0% 5.0%
Standard deviation 2.0% 0.8%
Range 10.0% 15%

Compared with the other industry, the relative dispersion of net profit margins is smaller for
Industry ________.
A) B, because it has a smaller mean deviation.
B) B, because it has a smaller range of variation.
C) A, because it has a smaller standard deviation.
D) A, because it has a smaller coefficient of variation.

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14) The sample data below shows the number of hours spent by five students over the weekend
to prepare for Monday's Business Statistics exam.

3 12 2 3 5

The mean and the median of the numbers of hours spent by the five students are ________.
A) 2 hours and 3 hours, respectively
B) 3 hours and 5 hours, respectively
C) 5 hours and 2 hours, respectively
D) 5 hours and 3 hours, respectively

15) The sample data below shows the number of hours spent by five students over the weekend
to prepare for Monday's Business Statistics exam.

3 12 2 3 5

The 75th percentile of the data is the closest to ________.

A) 3 hours
B) 4.5 hours
C) 8.5 hours
D) 10 hours

16) A bowler's scores for a sample of six games were

172 168 188 190 172 182 174

The bowler's modal score is ________.

A) 172
B) 174
C) 178
D) 190

17) Professors at a local university earn an average salary of $80,000 with a standard deviation
of $6,000. With the beginning of the next academic year, all professors will get a 2% raise. What
will be the average and the standard deviation of their new salaries?
A) $80,000 and $6,120.
B) $81,600 and $6,000.
C) $81,600 and $6,120.
D) $82,000 and $6,200.

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18) A portfolio's annual total returns (in percent) for a five-year period are:

–7.14 1.62 2.50 –2.50 9.27

The median and the standard deviation for this sample are the closest to ________.
A) 0.75 and 5.46
B) 1.62 and 5.46
C) 1.62 and 6.11
D) 2.50 and 6.11

19) Automobiles traveling on a road with a posted speed limit of 65 miles per hour are checked
for speed by a state police radar system. The following is a frequency distribution of speeds.

Speed (miles per hour) Frequency

45 up to 55 50
55 up to 65 325
65 up to 75 275
75 up to 85 25

The standard deviation of this distribution is the closest to ________.

A) 5.35
B) 6.81
C) 9.54
D) 10.25

20) The following data represents the actual talk time, in hours, for the iPhone for 11 users.

25.1 19.1 21.6 9.5 20.3 18.0 24.6 25.2 21.9 29.7 28.5

The 60th percentile of this data set is ________.

A) 21.6
B) 21.9
C) 23.3
D) 24.7

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21) There are five rows of students seated in a marketing class. The following table shows the
number of students in each row and the average score of the most recent test for that row.

Row Number of Students Row Average Score

1 6 82.3
2 7 91.4
3 4 85.0
4 5 78.3
5 6 89.1

What is the average test score for this class?

A) 84.7
B) 85.7
C) 83.0
D) 86.8

22) The director of graduate admissions is analyzing the relationship between scores in the GRE
and student performance in graduate school, as measured by a student's GPA. The table below
shows a sample of 10 students.

GRE 1,500 1,400 1,000 1,050 1,100 1,250 800 850 950 1,350
GPA 3.4 3.5 3.0 2.9 3.0 3.3 2.7 2.8 3.2 3.3

Which of the following statements is correct?

A) The correlation between GRE and GPA is negative and weak.
B) The correlation between GRE and GPA is positive and weak.
C) The correlation between GRE and GPA is negative and strong.
D) The correlation between GRE and GPA is positive and strong.

23) The following represent the sizes of fleece jackets for kids sold at a local Old Navy Store.

6 7 4 8 1 0 4 5 4 4 6

Calculate the mean, median, and mode size of fleece jackets for kids. Which of these measures
of the central location represents the age that the store would like to target for advertisement
dollars.

24) John lives in Los Angeles and hates the traffic. He asked a sample of six of his coworkers
who live all over Los Angles how many hours they spend commuting every year. These are their
responses in hours per year.

20 240 260 300 310 570

a. Calculate and interpret the 30th, 50th, and 70th percentiles.

b. Are there any outliers? Is the distribution symmetric? If not, comment on its skewness.

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25) The following is a list of average wind speeds at a local surf spot in California over the last
week.

8 17 19 6 3 9 12

a. What is the range in wind speed?

b. What is the Mean Absolute Deviation of the wind speed?

26) The following table shows the annual returns (in percent) Chevron and Caterpillar for
.

Year Chevron Caterpillar

1 35% 14%
2 –20% –30%
3 3% 30%
4 15% 55%

a. Which fund had the higher arithmetic average return?

b. Which fund was riskier over this time period?

27) A luxury apartment complex in South Beach Miami is for sale. The owner has received the
following offers in millions of dollars.

64 72 66 58 78 82

a. What is the mean offer price? What is the median offer price? Is the mean a good measure of
central location?
b. What is the sample standard deviation of the offers?
c. What is equivalent to a 75th percentile offer?

28) The following is a list of GPA ranges and frequencies from a high school. Use 1.5 as the
midpoint of the 2.0 or less category.

GPA ƒi
2.0 or less 2
2.0-2.5 8
2.5-3.0 34
3.0-3.5 4
3.5-4.0 2

a. What is the mean GPA?

b. What is the sample standard deviation of the GPA?
c. Assuming the distribution is bell shaped what percentage of the students would have GPAs
between 1.5 and 3.9? Does this make sense given what you know about GPAs?

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29) A surfer visited his favorite beach 50 times and recorded the wave height each time in the
following table.

Heights of waves in feet Frequency

0 to 2 20
3 to 5 15
6 to 8 10
9 to 11 5
Total 50

a. Calculate the average wave height.

b. Calculate the variance and standard deviation wave height for this sample.

30) The following is data a veterinarian collected from some of her clients. It is a rough estimate
of a dog's weight and how long the dog lived.

Estimate of Dog's Weight Life span

20 13
40 12
60 10
100 7
130 6
sWeight = 44.70 sLife Span = 3.05

a. Calculate the covariance between a dog's weight and its life span.
b. Calculate and interpret the correlation coefficient.