COMM 215 – Tutorial No.

1
January 20, 2023

Tutorial Lecturer Lidiia Shchichko

Contact [email protected]
Today’s Coverage
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Chapter 2 – Descriptive Statistics: Tabular/Graphical

Credit: James Peters

QUESTION 1.1
Which of the following describes a qualitative variable?
a) The height of a basketball player
b) The letter grade obtained by a COMM 215 student
c) The number of students enrolled at JMSB
d) All of the above
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
Height and number of students both describe quantitative variables since they
represent numerical measurements. Letter grades (ie. B+), although associated to
a numerical weight, are described by a placeholder that is expressed qualitatively.
QUESTION 1.2
Which of the following is true?
a) Quantitative variables can be nominal or ordinal
b) Nominal variables can be ranked from least to greatest
c) Qualitative variables cannot contain numbers
d) All of the above
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
Option (a) is false: qualitative variables can be nominal or ordinal. Option (b) is
false: ordinal variables can be ranked from least to greatest. Option (c) is false:
consider the counterexample of phone numbers (they are numerical, but not
quantitative).
QUESTION 1.3
Which of the following variables are ordinal?
a) Starbucks coffee cup sizes
b) A student’s GPA
c) The colors available on a new car model
d) All of the above
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
Grade point averages (GPA) are quantitatively defined, and therefore cannot be
ordinal. Colors describe a nominal variable class since they cannot be ordered.
Coffee cup sizes (ie. small, medium, large, etc…) are qualitative variables that can
be ranked from smallest to largest and are therefore ordinal.
QUESTION 1.4
A gym offers four membership plans: Basic (valued at
$100/year), Deluxe ($200/year), Premium ($250/year),
and Gold ($300/year). Which of the following classes
correctly describes this variable?
a) Quantitative, ratio
b) Quantitative, interval
c) Qualitative, nominal
d) Qualitative, ordinal
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
While the memberships themselves are associated with a dollar amount, the
variables are described qualitatively. Due to the dollar value of each membership,
they can be ranked from cheapest to most expensive, making them ordinal.
QUESTION 1.5
American ZIP codes are usually expressed as a five-
digit sequence. ZIP codes are best described by which
of the following variable classes?
a) Qualitative, ordinal
b) Quantitative, interval
c) Quantitative, ratio
d) Qualitative, nominal
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
ZIP codes are expressed numerically, but they are not quantitative (ie. it is not
meaningful for us to take their averages of standard deviations). While ZIP codes
can technically be sorted from lowest to highest, the rank is meaningless. The
codes are simply placeholders which represent some geographic region in
America. Therefore, a smaller ZIP code is not inferior to nor weighted less than a
large one.
QUESTION 1.6
In which of the following scenarios would we be most
likely to see time series data?
i. When comparing the pass rates between last
semester’s COMM 215 sections
ii. When studying enrollment across all JMSB
majors
iii. When computing the depreciation of car’s value

a) i only
b) ii only
c) iii only
d) i and ii
e) i, ii, and iii

Reasoning:
Time series data is used to describe the change of a variable over time.
Statements (i) and (ii) both look at variables at a given point in time (“last
semester” and now, respectively). Statement (iii) describes the change (decrease)
in a car’s value over time.
QUESTION 1.7
A business professor divides her class by major, and
then randomly selects one student from each
concentration to give a short presentation. The
sampling design here describes:
a) Stratified sampling
b) Cluster sampling
c) Unjust random sampling
d) Systematic sampling
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
Stratified sampling describes the procedure in which we segment a population
into classes (called strata) and take an equal sample from each, as described here.
Cluster sampling occurs when we separate the population into heterogeneous
groups (clusters) of equal size and then randomly selecting one or more clusters
for the sample. Unjust random sampling does not exist. Systematic sampling
describes the process of consistently choosing the sample (ie. selecting every
tenth individual alphabetically).
QUESTION 1.8
A small firm reports the annual salaries of its
employees in the following frequency distribution:

Salary (in $) Frequency

[0, 30,000] 5
(30,000, 60,000] 7
(60,000, 90,000] 14
(90,000, 120,000] 4

Which of the following correctly expresses the

cumulative relative frequency for the (60,000, 90,000]
bracket?
a) 0.26
b) 26
c) 0.14
d) 0.46
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
We use the following equation to describe the cumulative frequency in question:
𝑓1 + 𝑓2 + 𝑓3 5 + 7 + 14 26
𝑐𝑟𝑓3 = = = = 0.867
𝑛 30 30
QUESTION 1.9
You are studying the GPAs of a sample of 100 JMSB
students. You find that no students have a GPA below
2.0, while only 7 have a GPA below 3.0, and 83 have a
GPA below 4.0. Which of the following is false?
i. 10 students have a GPA of 4.0 and above
ii. 83% of students have a GPA between 3.0 and 4.0
iii. 93% of students have a GPA of 3.0 and above

a) i only
b) iii only
c) i and ii
d) i and iii
e) i, ii, and iii

Reasoning:
Statement (i) is false: since 83 students have a GPA below 4.0, we must have that
17 of the sampled students (ie. 100 − 83 = 17) have a GPA of 4.0 and above.
Statement (ii) is false: since 83 students have a GPA below 4.0 and 7 students
have a GPA below 3.0, the number of students with a GPA between 3.0 and 4.0 is
76 (ie. 83 − 7 = 76), which corresponds to 76%. Statement (iii) is true, and
follows from the logic used to justify Statement (i).
QUESTION 1.10
A retailer constructs a stem-and-leaf plot for the
amount of time (in seconds) required to process a
credit card transaction. The plot is displayed below and
contains 20 observations:

0 9
1 2257
2 3689
3 12445667779

Given that the stem unit is 1 and the leaf unit is 0.1,
what is the value of the 12th observation?
a) 3.44
b) 34
c) 0.4
d) 4
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
The 12th observation has stem 3 and leaf 4, thus it is 3.4.
QUESTION 1.11
A business analyst at Honda has been tasked with
providing a data visualization depicting the proportion
of sales attributed to each car model sold this year.
Which of the following graphical methods is least
appropriate?
a) Pie chart
b) Bar chart
c) Histogram
d) Pareto chart
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
The variable in question, car model, is qualitative (or categorical). Options (a), (b),
and (d) are all appropriate: in each of these displays, we would expect to see
proportion (or percentage) of sales corresponding to each category (ie. car
model). Option (c), the histogram, should only be used for representing
quantitative data.
QUESTION 1.12
Consider the Pareto chart below, which describes the
frequency and proportion of Tactica Inc. salespeople by
division (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo):

Fill in the blanks: Among the ________ salespeople at

Tactica Inc., about ________ work in the Delta division.
a) 19; 25%
b) 19; 90%
c) 8; 25%
d) 8; 90%
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
We note that the bar chart corresponds to the frequency (left axis), while the line
graph corresponds to the percentage (right axis). Thus, of the 19 salespeople at
Tactica Inc., 10.5% (ie. (2/19)100% = 10.5%) work in the Delta division.
SUPP. QUESTION 1.13
For a research project, you are studying the GPAs of
BComm students at Concordia University. For
economic reasons, you grouped students into cohorts
of 100 and chose two cohorts at random to be part of
your sample. Which of the following describes the
sampling technique used?
a) Grouped sampling
b) Cluster sampling
c) Stratified random sampling
d) Simple random sampling
e) None of the above

Reasoning:
Here, we took the population (all Concordia BComm students) and divided them
into non-overlapping groups (called clusters) of 100. Our sample was represented
by the two random clusters selected (ie. 200 students). This describes cluster
sampling.
SUPP. QUESTION 1.14
Which of the following statements are true concerning
quantitative interval variables?
i. On the interval scale, zero represents no
magnitude
ii. Ratios of interval variables are not meaningful
iii. Temperature (in degrees Celsius) describes an
interval variable

a) i only
b) ii only
c) i and ii
d) ii and iii
e) i, ii, and iii

Reasoning:
Statement (iii) is true by definition and can help us with the other two. Statement
(i) is false: 0 degrees Celsius does not represent no temperature, but rather just a
cold temperature. Statement (ii) is true: 10 degrees Celsius is not twice as warm as
5 degrees Celsius, but just 5 degrees warmer.
SUPP. QUESTION 1.15
Consider a frequency distribution with 8 entries, each
of which is expressed as a value between 0 and 1.
Which of the following distributions might be described
here?
i. Relative frequency distribution
ii. Cumulative relative frequency distribution
iii. Cumulative frequency distribution

a) i only
b) ii only
c) iii only
d) i and ii
e) ii and iii

Reasoning:
We know that the entries are given as fractions (ie. between 0 and 1) and the
distribution must be relative, like Statements (i) and (ii). We are given no
information regarding whether the distribution is cumulative or not, and thus,
Statement (i) is not a valid option.