Deck 10: Summarizing the Data

Question 1

Cognitive psychologist Stephen M. Kosslyn wrote about three interrelated principles describing how the brain perceives and processes visual information. These three principles can be described as which of the following?

A) 1. to perceive is to immobilize; 2. mind over matter; and 3. the mind judges a book by its cover.
B) 1. the spirit is willing, but the mind is weak; 2. mind over matter; and 3. those who exert the first influence upon the mind, have the greatest power
C) 1. the mind is not a camera; 2. the mind judges a book by its cover; and 3. the spirit is willing, but the mind is weak.
D) 1. mind over matter; 2. to perceive is to immobilize; and 3. the mind is not a camera.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Data sets that contain two scores that occur with the highest frequency are considered to be

A) symmetrical.
B) asymmetrical.
C) bimodal.
D) normal.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Eli wants to visually display how student absences fluctuate over the course of the semester. Which type of visual display should Eli use?

A) stem-and-leaf chart
B) bar graph
C) frequency distribution
D) line graph

Answer 3

D

Question 4

In order to describe the typical score, Shellie sums all of the scores and divides that number by the number of scores. Which measure of central tendency has Shellie calculated?

A) mode
B) median
C) arithmetic mean
D) mean square

Question 5

A point in a data set which indicates that a known proportion of the data falls above that point and a known proportion of the data falls below that point is called a

A) mean.
B) percentile.
C) histogram.
D) mode.

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT a measure of spread?

A) crude range
B) standard deviation
C) standardized range
D) interquartile range

Question 7

A visual display that preserves the original numbers while still providing a visual summary of the data is the

A) frequency polygon.
B) stem-and-leaf chart.
C) histogram.
D) frequency distribution.

Question 8

Which measure of central tendency is most affected by outliers?

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

Question 9

Which of the following measures of spread is intended to take into account the possible imprecision of the measurement instrument?

A) the crude range
B) the interquartile range
C) the variance
D) the extended range

Question 10

The measure of central tendency that is determined by identifying the midmost score in a data set is the

A) mean.
B) mode.
C) percentile.
D) median.

Question 11

Chris calculates the distance between the 25^th and 75^th percentile in a data set. Chris is interested in identifying the

A) interquartile range.
B) standard deviation.
C) crude range.
D) extended range.

Question 12

Which of the following is NOT a measure of central tendency?

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

Question 13

Which measure of spread represents simply the difference between the highest score and the lowest score?

A) standardized range
B) crude range
C) extended range
D) interquartile range

Question 14

As he calculates the measures of central tendency for his data set, Andrew notices the mean is substantially higher than the median. Andrew concludes that the distribution is most likely

A) symmetrical.
B) positively skewed.
C) negatively skewed.
D) bimodal.

Question 15

A professor is interested in the overall pattern of the scores from an exam he recently gave. Which of the following would be most useful to him?

A) the mean exam score
B) the frequency distribution of the exam scores
C) the range of the exam scores
D) the variance of the exam scores

Question 16

Using a trimmed mean to measure central tendency may be appropriate when the distribution of the scores is

A) symmetrical.
B) normal.
C) standardized.
D) asymmetrical.

Question 17

The score that occurs with the greatest frequency in a data set is the

A) mode.
B) median.
C) mean.
D) variance.

Question 18

A stem-and-leaf chart showing the data points from two different sets of data is called a __________ stem-and-leaf.

A) back-to-back
B) normal
C) frequency
D) comparison

Question 19

In the data set consisting of 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 9, what is the mode?

A) 3
B) 4
C) 4.67
D) 6

Question 20

To visualize the overall pattern of the data, it is often useful to create a

A) frequency distribution.
B) measure of location.
C) measure of spread.
D) standardized score.

Question 21

Steve transforms a score by subtracting the mean from that score and then dividing the result by the standard deviation of all of the scores. The score that Steve has calculated is called the

A) mean.
B) z score.
C) average deviation score.
D) variance.

Question 22

Which popular measure of spread is calculated by taking the square root of the variance?

A) the average deviation
B) the mean square
C) the standard deviation
D) the standard score

Question 23

Another name for the variance is the

A) standard deviation.
B) mean square.
C) extended range.
D) average deviation.

Question 24

A distribution that can be characterized as a bell shape curve is considered to be a __________ distribution.

A) asymmetric
B) skewed
C) normal
D) standardized

Question 25

If one is interested in measuring the variability in a complete population, one is using a(n) __________ measure. If one is interested in measuring the variability of a sample to generalize to an unknown population, one is using a(n) __________ measure.

A) standardized; inferential
B) descriptive; standardized
C) inferential; descriptive
D) descriptive; inferential

Question 26

In a normal distribution of population scores, roughly how many of these scores will fall between -1σ and +1σ?

A) 2%
B) 50%
C) 68.3%
D) 95%

Question 27

An instructor administers an exam to a psychology class. The mean exam grade was 80, with a standard deviation of 10. Supposing you receive a score of 95, what is your z score?

A) -1.5
B) -.5
C) +.5
D) +1.5

Question 28

A standard normal distribution has a mean of _____ and a standard deviation of _____.

A) 0; 1
B) 1; 0
C) 1; 1.5
D) 0; .5

Question 29

Describe the three essential criteria for ensuring graphical integrity when visually displaying one's data.

Question 30

Which of the following measures of spread utilizes every score in the data set?

A) the variance
B) the crude range
C) the interquartile range
D) the extended range

Question 31

In a normal distribution, the mean is __________ the median.

A) more meaningful than
B) equal to
C) smaller than
D) larger than

Question 32

Scores from data sets with different ranges can be compared and combined using their respective

A) means.
B) variances.
C) standard deviations.
D) z scores.

Question 33

A __________ z score is above the mean, while a __________ z score is below the mean.

A) negative; positive
B) positive; negative
C) positive; zero
D) zero; negative

Question 34

Which of the following formulae is used in the computation of the confidence interval for the mean?

A) $\sqrt { \frac { ( X - M ) ^ { 2 } } { N } }$
B) $\frac { X - M } { \sigma }$
C) $M \pm \frac { \left( t _ { .05 } \right) ( S ) } { \sqrt { N } }$
D) $\frac { \sum ( X - M ) ^ { 2 } } { N }$

Question 35

The sign of a z score indicates whether the individual raw score is larger or smaller than its

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

Question 36

Using an index for reporting the proportion of N scores falling on the mode, a mode having 10 scores of "4" out of 50 possible scores falling on the mode would be annotated as

A) 4_(.20).
B) 4_(50).
C) µ.
D)10

Question 37

The root mean square is another name for the

A) standard deviation.
B) variance.
C) crude range.
D) interquartile range.

Question 38

An index for reporting the proportion of N scores falling on the mode might be as a subscript (in parentheses) of the mode. The name for this index is

A) modal representativeness index.
B) infinite.
C) precision index.
D) abscissa index.

Question 39

z scores statistically translate any individual raw score into a score that indicates how many __________ the score is away from its __________.

A) standard deviation units; mean
B) variance units; mean
C) standard deviation units; median
D) interquartile units; median

Question 40

Judy subtracts each score from the mean, squares each value, and then determines the mean of these squared values. Which measure of spread is Judy calculating?

A) the interquartile range
B) the crude range
C) the standard deviation
D) the variance

Question 41

What are outliers? What problems can they create when calculating the arithmetic mean? How might this problem be resolved?

Question 42

Why is it important to report the spread of the data along with the central tendency when describing a data set?

Question 43

What does the variance represent? How is this related to the standard deviation?

Question 44

When Steven M. Kosslyn asserts that the mind is not a camera; the mind judges a book by its cover; and the spirit is willing, but the mind is weak, what do these principles mean for researchers when they are presenting data in visual form?

Question 45

Why would one calculate the confidence interval for a mean?

Question 46

What is a normal distribution? What value does it have to researchers?

Question 47

When is it appropriate to use the inferential formula when calculating the variance rather than the descriptive formula?

Question 48

What is the benefit of looking at the overall pattern of the data? Describe one method for visualizing the data.

Question 49

Why is it useful to identify the central tendency of a data set? Describe three measures of central tendency.

Question 50

Differentiate between the crude range, the extended range, and the interquartile range.

Question 51

Differentiate between symmetrical, positively skewed, and negatively skewed distributions.