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2.4 Percentile

Percentiles indicate a student's rank or position within a data set rather than a percentage. They divide the data into 100 equal parts. To calculate percentiles: 1) Arrange the data in ascending order 2) Find the location using a formula 3) Calculate the percentile value For example, if a student scored at the 80th percentile on a test of 100 questions, their score would be between the 16th and 17th highest scores in the class. The median is the 50th percentile, which divides the data set precisely in half. Quartiles and deciles indicate percentile positions at 25%, 50%, and 75% or every 10th position, respectively.

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32 views3 pages

2.4 Percentile

Percentiles indicate a student's rank or position within a data set rather than a percentage. They divide the data into 100 equal parts. To calculate percentiles: 1) Arrange the data in ascending order 2) Find the location using a formula 3) Calculate the percentile value For example, if a student scored at the 80th percentile on a test of 100 questions, their score would be between the 16th and 17th highest scores in the class. The median is the 50th percentile, which divides the data set precisely in half. Quartiles and deciles indicate percentile positions at 25%, 50%, and 75% or every 10th position, respectively.

Uploaded by

lisa zheng
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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2.

Mr. Shakaib Khan

Chapter 2 – Statistics of one variable


2.1

2.4 Percentiles (Book Page: 266 – 277)


Percentiles are measures of position. They are different from percentages. If a
student gets 72 answers correct at a test of 100 questions, then the percentage is 72% (72%
correct) but there is no indication of student’s position (rank) in class. If, on the other hand, if
a score of 72 correct, corresponds to the other 65th percentile, then the student did better
than 65% of students in the class.
Definition: We write for percentile and it divides the data set into 100 equal parts. They
are measures of position (rank) within the data set. Then can take values from 1 to 100. So
refers to the value at 65th percentile, Note that has no connection to 65%
To calculate percentiles, we use 3 steps

Step 1: Arrange the data

Step 2: Find the location using

Step 3: Calculate
Example: consider the data set of 20 students’ marks out of a total 40 marks. The data are
already arranged
17 20 21 23 23 24 25 26 29 30
30 31 31 33 34 34 36 37 39 40
a) if a student scores at 80th percentile, what is score on the test?
b) If a student scores at 60th percentile what is his percentage?
c) If a student scored 30 marks out of 40, what is his percentile?
d) If a student scored 60% on the test what is his percentile?

a) To find the location is , that is between the 16th and


17th data values.
Then

b) To find the location is , that is between the 12th and


13th data values.
2.2

Then Then as a percentage


its

c) A score of 30 is located at 10th (or 11th) position. Then we will take the location as 10.5th

, Then a score of 30 is at the median

d) A score of 60% is equal to 24 marks, and is located at 6th position.

, Then a score of 60% is at percentile (rank)

That is 29% of students are below this mark of 60%, and 71% of the students are better than
this mark

Special percentiles
The Median is the value that is located at halfway position. Then median =
(50th percentile)
The Quartiles are values that are located at quarter positions: 1st - ,
2nd – Median = , 3rd -
The Deciles are values that are located at every 10th position.

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