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1.56 Distributions and appropriate statistics (Part II): For each of the followi

ID: 3353994 • Letter: 1

Question

1.56 Distributions and appropriate statistics (Part II): For each of the following, state whether you expect the distribution to be symmetric, right skewed, or left skewed. Also specify whether the mean or median would best represent a typical observation in the data, and whether the variability of observations would be best represented using the standard deviation or IQR. Explain your reasoning.
(a) Housing prices in a country where 25% of the houses cost below $350,000, 50% of the houses cost below $450,000, 75% of the houses cost below $1,000,000 and there are a meaningful number of houses that cost more than $6,000,000.
The distribution is expected to be:

symmetric

left skewed

right skewed


A typical observation is best represented by the:

median

mean


The variability in the observations is best measured by the:

IQR

standard deviation


(b) Housing prices in a country where 25% of the houses cost below $300,000, 50% of the houses cost below $600,000, 75% of the houses cost below $900,000 and very few houses that cost more than $1,200,000.
The distribution is expected to be:

left skewed

symmetric

right skewed


A typical observation is best represented by the:

median

mean


The variability in the observations is best measured by the:

IQR

standard deviation


(c) Number of alcoholic drinks consumed by college students in a given week. Assume that most of these students don't drink since they are under 21 years old, and only a few drink excessively.
The distribution is expected to be:

right skewed

symmetric

left skewed


A typical observation is best represented by the:

mean

median


The variability in the observations is best measured by the:

standard deviation

IQR


(d) Annual salaries of the employees at a Fortune 500 company where only a few high level executives earn much higher salaries than the all other employees.
The distribution is expected to be:

symmetric

right skewed

left skewed


A typical observation is best represented by the:

mean

median


The variability in the observations is best measured by the:

standard deviation

IQR

Explanation / Answer

a)

left skewed

median

IQR

b)

symmetric

mean

standard deviation

c)right skewed

median

IQR

d)

right skewed

median

IQR