Deck 11: Making Sense of Data: First Steps

Question 1

The _________ is a value that divides a distribution in half.

A) Mean
B) Mode
C) Median
D) Weighted mean

Answer 1

C

Question 2

A ____________ statistic is a number that, because of its definition and formula, describes certain characteristics or properties of a batch of numbers.

A) Relative
B) Cumulative
C) Descriptive
D) Proportional

Answer 2

C

Question 3

A frequency distribution that displays a few observations on the left or low end of the scale, and most observations are in the middle or high end of the scale is called

A) Positively skewed
B) Negatively skewed
C) Positive kurtosis
D) Negative kurtosis

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The _________ is the square root of the _________.

A) Range, interquartile range
B) Interquartile range, range
C) Standard deviation, variance
D) Variance, standard deviation

Question 5

Some measures of central tendency, known as _______________, are not sensitive to one or a few extremes values.

A) Outliers
B) Recalcitrant measures
C) Central tendency
D) Resistant measures

Question 6

An empirical ___________ distribution is a table that shows the number of observations having each value of a variable.

A) Frequency
B) Proportion
C) Cumulative proportion
D) Variance

Question 7

The ____________ is the square root of the variance.

Question 8

One can calculate the range by subtracting the ___________ from the ____________.

A) Minimum, maximum
B) Maximum, minimum
C) Median, mean
D) Mean, median

Question 9

The ___________ is the average or mean of squared deviations, or the average of all the squared differences between each score and the mean.

Question 10

The ____________ is the category with the greatest frequency of observations.

A) Median
B) Mode
C) Mean
D) Weighted mean

Question 11

A __________ is a type of bar graph in which the height and area of the bars are proportional to the frequencies in each category of a nominal variable or in intervals of a continuous variable.

Question 12

A good reason to use the trimmed mean instead of the mean is to correct for

A) Outliers
B) Variation
C) Discrepancies
D) Bias

Question 13

By subtracting the minimum value from the maximum value in a batch of numbers you can calculate the _______.

A) Range
B) Interquartile range
C) Variance
D) Standard deviation

Question 14

If there is no variability (all the scores of the variable have the same value), measures of dispersion will equal

A) 0
B) 1
C) -1
D) Cannot be calculated

Question 15

The __________ is a value that divides a distribution in half.

A) Median
B) Mode
C) Mean
D) Weighted mean

Question 16

A measure of _____________ describes the typical case in distribution.

A) Variation
B) Protocol
C) Deviation
D) Central tendency

Question 17

Why would one want to use a trimmed mean instead of a mean? In your answer please provide a numerical example that demonstrates the advantage.

Question 18

A _______ displays all of the observed values in a batch of numbers as dots along a horizontal or vertical line that represents the variable.

A) Bar chart
B) Histogram
C) Dot chart
D) Box plot

Question 19

By transforming the raw frequency into a proportion or percentage we get a __________ frequency.

A) Cumulative
B) Relative
C) Proportional
D) Distributive

Question 20

All of the following statements are true of measures of dispersion, except

A) If there is no variability, the measure will equal 0
B) If there is variability, the measure will be greater than 1
C) The measure will always be a positive number
D) The greater the variability in the data, the larger the numerical value of the measure

Question 21

Please identify and define three measures of central tendency. Use an example for why you might want to calculate all three measures.

Question 22

What is the sum of the deviations from the mean? How do you know your answer will always be correct regardless of the data used?

Question 23

How do measures of central tendency and variation complement each other when describing data?

Question 24

Why is the mean vulnerable to outliers while the median and mode are not?

Question 25

Please explain the features of the normal distribution and include a labeled figure.