QBM101 Tutorial Question Page 1

Module 1

Chapter 1 Introduction

Multiple choice questions:

1. The lowest level of data measurement is _______.

a) Interval level b) Ordinal level c) Nominal level
d) Ratio level e) minimal level

2. Which scale of measurement has these two properties: linear distance is meaningful and the
location of origin (or zero point) is arbitrary?
a) Interval level b) Ordinal level c) Nominal level
d) Ratio level e) Minimal level

3. Which scale of measurement has these two properties: linear distance is meaningful and the
location of origin (or zero point) is absolute (or natural)?
a) Interval level b) Ordinal level c) Nominal level
d) Ratio level e) Relative level

4. A question in a survey of microcomputer users asked: “Which operating system do you use
most often: a. Apple OS 7, b. MS DOS, c. MS Windows 95, d. UNIX.” The measurement
level for this question is _________________.
a) nominal level b) ordinal level c) interval level
d) ratio level e) relative level

5. Sales of a restaurant (in dollars) are an example of what level of data measurement?
a) Interval level data b) Ordinal level data c) Nominal level data
d) Ratio level data e) Relative level data

6. Which types of data are normally used in parametric statistics?

a) Interval or ratio level data b) Ordinal or nominal level data
c) Nominal or ratio level data d) Ratio or ordinal level data
e) Relative or ratio level data

7. Which types of data are normally used with nonparametric statistics?

a) Interval or ratio level data b) Ordinal or nominal level data
c) Nominal or ratio level data d) Ratio or ordinal level data
e) Relative or ratio level data

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Question 8: Classify each as nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio.

a. The final letter grades received by students in a statistics exam.

b. The number of kilometers driven annually by employees in company cars.
c. Temperatures of a sample of automobile tires test at 90km per hour for 10 minutes.
d. Classification of students according to department.
e. The weekly closing price of gold throughout a year.
f. The size of soft drink (large, medium, or small) ordered by each of a sample of customers
in a restaurant.
g. Consumers preferred colour of cars (red, white, blue, others) purchased.
h. Classification of students according to nationality.
i. The heights of children in pre-school.
j. The months in which there is high demand for electricity.

Question 9: Classify each variable as discrete or continuous.

a. The number of road accidents reported in a week.

b. The number of new born children in a household.
c. The number of employees working at HELP University College.
d. The amount of a drug injected into a patient.
e. The amount of MSG contained in a bag of potato chips.
f. The number of cars stolen each week in a large city.

Question 10: For each statement, decide whether descriptive or inferential statistics is used.

a. A recent study showed that eating garlic can lower blood pressure.
b. The average number of students in a class at a university is 22.6.
c. It is predicted that the average number of automobiles each household owns will
increase next year.
d. The use of frequency distribution to describe the ages of students in a university.
e. The chance that a person will be robbed in a certain city is 15%.

Question 11:

Briefly explain the difference between a census and a sample survey. Why is a sample survey
preferable to conducting a census?

Question 12:

Define the terms population and sample in statistics respectively.

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Question 13:

The following table gives the scores (marks) of 4 students in a statistics test.

Student Score (Mark)

John 60
Mark 55
Michelle 70
Ann 80

Briefly explain the meaning of a member, a variable, a measurement and a data set.

Question 14:

The following table is given:

Number (m) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (f) 82 278 43 16 6 3 1

Calculate  m,  f ,  m2 ,  mf ,  m2 f , and   f  .
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Chapter 2 Frequency distribution and graphic presentation

Multiple choice questions:

1. Consider the following frequency distribution:

Class Interval Frequency

10-under 20 15
20-under 30 25
30-under 40 10

What is the midpoint of the first class?

a) 10 b) 20 c) 15 d) 30 e) 40

2. Consider the following frequency distribution:

Class Interval Frequency

10-under 20 15
20-under 30 25
30-under 40 10

What is the relative frequency of the first class?

a) 0.15 b) 0.30 c) 0.10 d) 0.20 e) 0.40

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3. Consider the following frequency distribution:

Class Interval Frequency

10-under 20 15
20-under 30 25
30-under 40 10

What is the cumulative frequency of the second class interval?

a) 25 b) 40 c) 15 d) 50 e) 60

4. Consider the following stem and leaf plot:

Stem Leaf
1 0 2 5 7
2 2 3 4 8
3 0 4 6 6 9
4 5 8 8 9
5 2 7 8

Suppose that a frequency distribution was developed from this, and there were 5 classes (10-
under 20, 20-under 30, etc.). What was the lowest number in the data set?
a) 0 b) 10 c) 7 d) 2 e) 1

5. The following represent the ages of students in a class:

19, 23, 21, 19, 19, 20, 22, 31, 21, 20

If a stem and leaf plot were to be developed from this, how many stems would there be?
a) 2 b) 3 c) 4 d) 5 e) 10

6. A person has decided to construct a frequency distribution for a set of data containing 60
numbers. The lowest number is 23 and the highest number is 68. If 5 classes are used, the class
width should be approximately _______.
a) 4 b) 12 c) 8 d) 5 e) 9

Question 7

IQ Frequency Midpoint Boundaries Cumulative Relative

frequency frequency
80-87 16
88-95 37
96-103 50
104-111 29
112-119 14
a. Identify the class width, class marks (midpoint), and class boundaries.
b. Construct the cumulative frequency table.

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c. Construct the relative frequency table.

Question 8

The results from a statistics exam are as follows:

75 66 77 66 64 73 91 65 59 86
61 86 61 58 70 77 80 58 94 78
62 79 83 54 52 45 82 48 67 55
a. Construct a stem-and-leaf display for these data.
b. Construct a frequency distribution for these data, using six classes. (Use “40-49” for the first
class, “50-59” for the second class, and so on).
c. Construct a relative frequency histogram for these data.
d. Briefly describe what a histogram and the stem-and-leaf display tell you about the data.
e. Construct a cumulative relative frequency distribution for the marks.
f. What proportion of the marks is less than 70? Greater than 70?

Question 9

The number of weekly sales calls by a sample of 25 salespeople for a dress manufacturer in
Melbourne is shown below:
24 56 43 35 37 27 29 44 34 28
33 28 46 31 38 41 48 38 27 29
37 33 31 40 50
Manually draw each of the following graphs:
a. A stem and leaf display.
b. A frequency distribution with 5 classes. (Use “20-27” for the first class)
c. A frequency polygon.
d. An ogive.

Question 10
A large investment firm in Sydney wants to review the distribution of the ages of its
stockbrokers. The firm feels that this information will be useful in developing plans relating to
recruitment and retirement options. The ages of a sample of 24 brokers are as follows:
50 64 32 55 41 44 24 46 58 47 36 52 54
44 66 47 59 61 57 49 28 42 38 45
a. Construct a stem and leaf display for the ages.

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b. Construct a frequency distribution for the data, using five class intervals and the value 20 as
the lower limit of the first class. (Use “20 and less than 30” as the first class, “30 and less than
40” for the second class, and so on.)
c. Construct a relative frequency histogram for the data, using five class intervals and the value
20 as the lower limit of the first class.
d. Construct a frequency polygon.
e. Construct an ogive for the data.
f. What proportion of the total area under the histogram from part (c) falls between 20 and 40?

Chapter 3 Numerical descriptive measures

Multiple choice questions:

1. The empirical rule says that approximately what percentage of the values would be within 2
standard deviations of the mean in a bell shaped set of data?
a) 95% b) 68% c) 50% d) 97.7% e) 100%

2. A statistics student made the following grades on 5 tests: 84, 78, 88, 78, and 72. What is the
mean grade?
a) 78 b) 80 c) 72 d) 84 e) 88

3. A statistics student made the following grades on 5 tests: 84, 78, 88, 72, and 72. What is the
median grade?
a) 88 b) 72 c) 78 d) 80 e) 82

4. A statistics student made the following grades on 5 tests: 84, 78, 88, 78, and 82. What is the
mode?
a) 78 b) 80 c) 88 d) 84 e) 82

5. A commuter travels many miles to work each morning. She has timed this trip 5 times
during the last month. The time (in minutes) required to make this trip was 44, 39, 41, 35, and
41. The mean time required for this trip was 40 minutes. What is the variance for this sample
data?
a) 8.8 b) 11 c) 0 d) 3 e) -2

6. A commuter travels many miles to work each morning. She has timed this trip 5 times
during the last month. The time (in minutes) required to make this trip was 44, 39, 41, 35, and
41. The mean time required for this trip was 40 minutes. What is the standard deviation for this
sample data?
a) 3.32 b) 2.97 c) 1.73 d) 11 e) -1.4

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7. The following box and whisker plot was constructed for the age of accounts receivable.

The box and whisker plot reveals that the accounts receivable ages are _______.
a) skewed to the left b) skewed to the right c) not skewed
d) normally distributed e) symmetrical

8. The following frequency distribution was constructed for the age of accounts receivable.

The frequency distribution reveals that the accounts receivable ages are _______.
a) skewed to the left b) skewed to the right c) not skewed
d) normally distributed e) symmetrical

9. According to Chebyshev's Theorem how many values in a data set will be within 2 standard
deviations of the mean?

a) At least 75%
b) At least 68%
c) At least 95%
d) At least 89%
e) At least 99%

Question 10

Sporting competitions that use judges’ scores to determine a competitor’s performance often
drop the lowest and the highest scores before calculating the mean score, in order to diminish the
effect of extreme vales on the mean. Suppose that A and B receive the following scores:

A: 6.0 7.0 7.25 7.25 7.5 7.5 7.5

B : 7.0 7.0 7.0 7.25 7.5 7.5 8.5

a. Compare the performance of competitors A and B based on the mean of their scores, both
before and after dropping the two extreme scores for each competitor.
b. Repeat part (a), calculating the median instead of the mean.

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Question 11

The ages of a sample of 25 stockholders were recorded as follows:

50 64 30 55 46 35 24 46 58 47 31 52 54
37 66 47 59 51 61 57 49 28 48 32 38

a. Calculate the mean of the sample data.

b. Calculate the 5 figure summary and hence construct the box plot.
c. From the box plot construct the inner lower fence and inner upper fence and hence
identify the presence of any outliers.
d. Comment on the skewness of the distribution.
e. Calculate the variance of the sample.
f. Calculate the standard deviation of the sample.
g. Calculate the range the data.
h. Construct a range approximation to the standard deviation.

Question 12

Two shifts of data-processing personnel produce about the same number of invoices each day.
Examination of invoices from 11 randomly selected days reveals the number of invoices with
typing errors. Data were gathered for the number of invoices per day that have typing errors, and
the results are below.

Shift 1: 10 12 18 10 9 14 20 19 10 16 9
Shift 2: 7 8 6 4 8 7 8 6 5 7 6

a. Construct a boxplot for each shift.

b. Compare the performance of the two shifts.

Question 13

Listed below are the actual energy consumption amount as reported on the electric bills for one
residence. Each amount is in kilowatts-hours and a two-month period.

728 774 859 882 791 731 838 862 880 831 837
759 774 832 816 860 856 787 715 752 778
829 792 908 714 839 752 834 818 835 751

a. Find the range, the variance, and the standard deviation for the given data.
b. Construct a histogram of the data. (Use the classes “700 and under 750”, “750 and under
800”, etc)
c. Calculate the values of μ - 3σ and μ + 3σ.

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d. According to Chebyshev’s theorem, what percentage of data should lie between the two
values from part (c)?
e. According to the empirical rule (assuming a bell-shaped distribution), what percentage of
data should lie between the two values from part (c)?
f. In this case, which gives the better result: Chebyshev’s theorem or the empirical rule?
Why?
g. How well does the range rule of thumb work for this data set?

Question 14

The frequency distribution of the ages of a random sample of 50 factory workers in the service in
the service sector is shown below:

Ages(Years) No. of workers (Frequency)

20 and less than 30 8
30 and less than 40 9
40 and less than 50 23
50 and less than 60 7
60 and less than 70 3

Calculate the sample mean and standard deviation of the ages of the workers.

Question 15

A transport company providing delivery services is analyzing the distribution of the weight of
packages delivered. The following are the weights in kilograms of a random sample of 26
packages.

59 44 57 63 100 50 62 54 46 85 48 52

67 54 79 49 65 62 55 57 60 51 73 54

59 55

MS-EXCEL was used to analyze the data. The summary output and box plot follows:

Weight

Mean 60

Standard Error 2.47635

Median 57

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Mode 54

Standard Deviation 12.63

Sample Variance 159.44

Kurtosis 3.16

Skewness a

Range 56

Minimum 44

Maximum 100

Sum 1560

Count 26

BoxPlot showing the distribution of package weights

44 54 64 74 84 94 104
Weight in Kg

a. Identify the three measures of central location and explain the meaning of each one of the
three measures.

b. Construct an ordered stem-and-leaf plot to sort the data.

c. Identify any outliers evident from the box plot.

d. The value for skewness marked “a” in the summary output is missing. Should this value
be positive or negative? Justify this by providing one reason from the summary output
and one reason from the box-plot.

e. If the outliers are removed, which of the measures of central location would change?
Find the new value of any measures which have changed.

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