Question

Which five-number summary or mean and standard deviation best describes the center and spread of the following data set?

35, 42, 37, 41, 39, 44, 37, 39, 41, 40, 45, 38, 34, 37

Answer 1

35, 42, 37, 41, 39, 44, 37, 39, 41, 40, 45, 38, 34, 37
The -number summary will be calculated as follows:
Re-arranging the set in ascending order we shall have:
34, 35, 37, 37, 37, 38, 39, 39, 40, 41, 41, 42, 44, 45,
From the set above:
Minimum =34
1st quarter = 37
Median= 39
3rd Quarter =41
Maximum =45
Mean=39.21
thus since mean is almost equal to median, both median and mean could be used to represent the distribution.