Deck 4: Measures of Central Tendency

Question 1

Which of the following can be used with ratio level data?

A)median
B)mean
C)mode
D)all of the above

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Measures of central tendency focus on the middle of the data.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

One of the ways in which a mode is helpful is if

A)you had to predict the most likely outcome
B)you had to correct for centrality in a nominal level variable
C)you had to eliminate half of all guesses about which result is correct
D)a and c above

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The mode is defined as

A)the category with the greatest number of cases
B)the largest score
C)the mid-point case of a nominal-level variable
D)the square root of the nominal centrality divided by the index of dispersion

Question 5

The median is:

A)the largest score
B)the middle score in the largest category
C)the midpoint of an ordered distribution
D)an arithmetic average

Question 6

Measures of central tendency provide a description of a variable by focusing on a point.

Question 7

The example using the U.S.Census Bureau and income in the text of Chapter 4 was an illustration of

A)a need to use caution when interpreting the mode
B)a need to use a mean instead of a median
C)a need to use a median instead of a mean
D)there was no example using the Census Bureau and income in Chapter 4

Question 8

It can sometimes be easier just to look at the data and locate the mean.

Question 9

The mean is best defined as

A)the arithmetic average of a set of scores
B)the average centrality of the middle variable in a set of variables
C)the sum of the number of categories divided by the number of cases
D)the standardized sum of cases divided by the number of categories

Question 10

Univariate statistics are designed to give us information about relationships.

Question 11

Measures of central tendency,in general,can be used for

A)prediction
B)splitting up a group for sampling
C)determining "normal" characteristics of groups
D)all of the above

Question 12

If a distribution is bimodal,which of the following would be correct?

A)there are only two categories in the variable
B)two categories of any size are alike
C)two categories tie for the largest number of cases
D)there are two high scores in the data

Question 13

When there are four or more categories tied for the largest number of cases,the result would be called

A)multivariate
B)multimodal
C)multicentral
D)none of the above

Question 14

Which of these should be used when extremes occur in interval level data?

A)mean
B)harmonic mean
C)mode
D)median

Question 15

A mode is most useful when there are extremes in the data.

Question 16

Which of the following occurs when determining a median with an even number of scores?

A)after determining the median,the result must be divided by 2
B)the result must be divided by the number of cases
C)you have two cases in the middle
D)none of the above are correct

Question 17

In a distribution of ten scores (2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6):

A)the distribution is bimodal
B)there is a pronounced relationship
C)the mean and the median will coincide
D)a and c above

Question 18

A median can be used when

A)the data are nominal
B)the data are ordinal
C)the data are interval
D)b and c above

Question 19

Which of the following is the one point that is closest to all of the scores of a variable?

A)geometric median
B)mean
C)standard point of centrality
D)mode

Question 20

In general,a univariate statistic is one in which

A)the variable of interest is compared to a single other variable
B)a single variable is tested for its probability of occurrence
C)one variable is used to test for a relationship with another
D)provides information on a single variable

Question 21

The presence of extremes can be an argument for using a median with interval level data.

Question 22

Samples with an even number of cases (scores)have an artificial median.

Question 23

Measures of central tendency give us a standard point of reference when looking for differences between groups,

Question 24

Measures of central tendency can only be used with single groups and cannot be used for comparison purposes.

Question 25

The median is frequently used in sophisticated statistics.