Deck 3: Vive La Différence: Understanding Variability

Question 1

What are the three tools used to assess variability?

A)range, standard deviation, and variance
B)mean, median, and mode
C)variance, range, and mean
D)mean, standard deviation, and skewness

Answer 1

A

Question 2

What is the range for the following set of scores: 34, 14, 17, 57, 22?

A)14
B)17
C)57
D)43

Answer 2

D

Question 3

In the formula for computing the range, what does the letter l represent?

A)range
B)variability
C)highest score
D)lowest score

Answer 3

D

Question 4

When reporting descriptive data such as the mean, what additional information should also be reported that expresses how different the scores are in the distribution?

A)variability
B)outlier
C)skew
D)percentile

Question 5

In order to calculate the variance, which of the following must you know?

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

Question 6

If you subtract the smallest number in the distribution from the largest, what type of variability is being calculated?

A)variance
B)range
C)outliers
D)standard deviation

Question 7

Which measure of variability is easiest to calculate?

A)standard deviation
B)mode
C)range
D)variance

Question 8

What is another term for variability?

A)flux or variation
B)scattergram
C)skewness
D)spread or dispersion

Question 9

Which of the following is NOT a measure of variability?

A)mean
B)standard deviation
C)variance
D)range

Question 10

Which of the following measures how scores differ from each other?

A)skewness
B)kurtosis
C)average
D)variability

Question 11

Which measure of variability is most general and, hence, least useful?

A)median
B)range
C)standard deviation
D)mean deviation

Question 12

In the formula for computing the range, what does the letter h represent?

A)summation
B)sample size
C)highest score
D)lowest score

Question 13

Which measure of variability should never be used alone to reach conclusions regarding the variance of a distribution?

A)standard deviation
B)mode
C)variance
D)range

Question 14

What is the range for the following set of scores: 29, 48, 22, 37, 55?

A)26
B)33
C)37
D)55

Question 15

In the formula for computing the range, this is used to represent the range.

A)rho
B)Ran.
C)r
D)rhi

Question 16

Which of the following measures how different scores are from one particular score?

A)average
B)correlation
C)variability
D)standard deviation

Question 17

What is the range for the following set of scores: 117, 249, 326, 47, 442?

A)117
B)395
C)326
D)442

Question 18

Which measure of variability is a measure of the average distance from the mean?

A)standard deviation
B)range
C)median
D)mode

Question 19

What is the most common measure of variability?

A)range
B)standard deviation
C)variance
D)mean deviation

Question 20

If you have a lowest score of 21 and a range of 47, your highest score will be _______.

A)26
B)21
C)47
D)68

Question 21

The sum of the deviations from the mean will always be equal to _______.

A)zero
B)one
C)n − 1
D)n + 1

Question 22

In the formula for calculating the standard deviation, what does the Greek letter Σ represent?

A)summation
B)sample size
C)mean score for group
D)individual scores

Question 23

Which of the following is one way to represent the standard deviation?

A)s
B)s²
C)s(2)
D)s / n

Question 24

The highest score minus the lowest score is equal to the _______.

A)standard deviation
B)inclusive range
C)exclusive range
D)variance

Question 25

Variability is a measure of how much individual scores differ from the _______.

A)mean
B)range
C)standard deviation
D)variance

Question 26

What is obtained by squaring the standard deviation?

A)mean deviation
B)range
C)variance
D)squared deviation

Question 27

The sum of the absolute value of the deviations from the mean divided by the number of scores is equal to the _______.

A)mean
B)standard deviation
C)mean deviation
D)variance

Question 28

What is obtained by taking the square root of the variance?

A)standard deviation
B)mean
C)mode
D)mean deviation

Question 29

Unbiased estimates ______.

A)are less conservative estimates of sample statistics
B)are more conservative estimates of sample statistics
C)are less conservative estimates of population parameters
D)are more conservative estimates of population parameters

Question 30

Which of the following is one way to represent the variance?

A)s
B)s²
C)s(2)
D)s / n

Question 31

The highest score minus the lowest score plus one is equal to the _______.

A)exclusive range
B)variance
C)inclusive range
D)standard deviation

Question 32

What is the standard deviation for the following set of scores: 10, 15, 12, 18, 19, 16, 12?

A)3.36
B)11.29
C)6.47
D)17.78

Question 33

What is the formula for calculating the inclusive range?

A)r − n + 1
B)h − l + 1
C)(h − l) r
D)h − l

Question 34

When calculating the standard deviation, what must be done in order to obtain an unbiased estimate?

A)subtract 1 from X
B)add 1 to X
C)subtract 1 from n
D)add 1 to n

Question 35

Unbiased estimates ______.

A)subtract 1 from the sample size
B)add 1 to the sample size
C)do not change the sample size
D)multiply the sample size by 1

Question 36

Which of the following sets of scores has the least variability?

A)5, 4, 5, 6, 5
B)7, 2, 8, 9, 4
C)12, 14, 17, 19, 21
D)1, 2, 1, 7, 9

Question 37

In the formula for calculating the variance, what does the letter n represent?

A)summation
B)sample size
C)mean score for group
D)individual score

Question 38

What is the range for the following set of scores: 10, 15, 12, 18, 19, 16, 12?

A)7
B)8
C)9
D)10

Question 39

Which of the following sets of scores has the greatest variability?

A)7, 10, 11, 15, 19
B)7, 7, 8, 8, 10, 11
C)7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7
D)6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7

Question 40

What is the formula for calculating the exclusive range?

A)r − n + 1
B)h − l + 1
C)(h − 1) r
D)h − l

Question 41

What is the mean for the following set of scores: 20, 24, 26, 22, 18, 16, 18?

A)18
B)24
C)20.57
D)14.57

Question 42

If n = 24 and s = 1.56, what is the variance?

A)2.43
B)1.25
C)0.06
D)0.0065

Question 43

As your sample size grows larger, the n − 1 adjustment for the standard deviation has a ______.

A)greater impact on your calculation
B)smaller impact on your calculation
C)the impact does not vary
D)this cannot be determined

Question 44

What is the variance for the following set of scores: 20, 24, 26, 22, 18, 16, 18?

A)12.95
B)3.60
C)6.55
D)24

Question 45

If Σ(X − M)² = 235, and n = 29, what is s?

A)8.10
B)8.39
C)2.90
D)43.64

Question 46

Which of the following must also be known in order to compute the standard deviation?

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

Question 47

Unbiased estimates can be used ______.

A)to make sample estimates
B)to make population estimates
C)to make sample or population estimates
D)none of these

Question 48

Which of the following sets of data has no variability?

A)1, 2, 5, 4, 7
B)7, 7, 7, 2, 9
C)5, 5, 5, 5, 5
D)0, 0, 0, 0, 10

Question 49

When using sample estimates to estimate population parameters, you should use ______.

A)biased statistics
B)unbiased statistics
C)either biased or unbiased statistics
D)none of these

Question 50

What is the standard deviation squared?

A)range
B)mean deviation
C)variance
D)this cannot be computed

Question 51

If Σ(X − M)² = 235, and n = 29, what is s²?

A)8.10
B)8.39
C)2.90
D)43.64

Question 52

What is the variance for the following set of scores: 10, 15, 12, 18, 19, 16, 12?

A)3.36
B)11.29
C)6.47
D)17.18

Question 53

What is the range for the following set of scores: 20, 24, 26, 22, 18, 16, 18?

A)10
B)11
C)12
D)13

Question 54

If you have a standard deviation of 5, your variance will be _______.

A)4
B)25
C)5
D)625

Question 55

If Σ(X − M)² = 235, and n = 29, what is s?

A)11.3
B)23.5
C)8.39
D)2.90

Question 56

The variance of a group of scores is 4.What is the standard deviation?

A)3.5
B)18
C)2
D)16

Question 57

What is the standard deviation for the following set of scores: 20, 24, 26, 22, 18, 16, 18?

A)12.95
B)3.60
C)6.55
D)24

Question 58

If you have a variance of 9, your standard deviation will be _______.

A)9
B)81
C)3
D)0

Question 59

As your sample size grows larger, your standard deviation will be ______.

A)a more accurate estimate of the population
B)a less accurate estimate of the population
C)the accuracy will not change
D)this cannot be determined

Question 60

Biased estimates can be used ______.

A)to describe a sample
B)to describe a population
C)to describe a sample or a population
D)none of the above

Question 61

What are the strengths and limitations of the range?

Question 62

Why is the square root taken when computing s?

Question 63

If you know the standard deviation, what is the quick way to compute the variance?

Question 64

Variance is a difficult number to interpret.

Question 65

The exclusive range is more commonly used in research articles as compared with the inclusive range.

Question 66

What are the three measures of variability? Which is the most commonly reported?

Question 67

A standard deviation equal to 0 indicates no variance in your data.

Question 68

What is the difference between the inclusive and exclusive range?

Question 69

Unbiased estimates are considered to be less conservative estimates.

Question 70

Variability is also called dispersion or spread.

Question 71

Can the measures of central tendency and the measures of variability be used together to describe a set of scores? If so, how?

Question 72

Define variability.

Question 73

It is possible for a set of data to have no variability.

Question 74

The standard deviation is sensitive to extreme scores.

Question 75

How are the standard deviation and the variance similar? How are they different?

Question 76

The larger the standard deviation, the less spread out the values are.

Question 77

The variance is more difficult to interpret than the standard deviation.

Question 78

How does a biased standard deviation differ from an unbiased standard deviation?

Question 79

When computing the standard deviation, why are the deviations from the mean squared?

Question 80

A greater standard deviation indicates less variance.