UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2023/2024
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN DATA
SCIENCE
BDS 1205: EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS
FULL TIME/PART TIME/DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: APRIL, 2024 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer questions ONE and ANY other TWO
QUESTION 1(20 Marks)
(a) Define the following terms giving an example in each case
i). Continuous variables
ii). Multivariate categorical variables (4 Marks)
(b) These are Marks for 20 students in an assignment
84,17,38,45,47,53, 76,54,75,22,66,65,55,54,51,44,39,19,54,72
i). Draw a steam and leaf diagram to illustrate the data and determine the mode (4 Marks)
ii). Comment on the data given the shape of the stem- and- leaf diagram without any further
calculations (2 Marks)
iii). Name any other two types of graphical displays that would be suitable to represent the data.
(2 Marks)
(c) List and explain the steps followed when preparing data for exploratory analysis in R.
(8 Marks)
QUESTION 2 (15 Marks)
a) List any two primary types of EDA. (2 Marks)
b) A survey was conducted of 130 purchasers of new BMW 3 series cars, 130 purchasers of new
BMW 5 series cars, and 130 purchasers of new BMW 7 series cars. In it, people were asked the age
they were when they purchased their car. The following box plots display the results.
i). In complete sentences, describe what the shape of each box plot implies about the
distribution of the data collected for that car series. (6 Marks)
ii). Which group is most likely to have an outlier? Explain how you determined that.
(2 Marks)
iii). Compare the three box plots. What do they imply about the age of purchasing a BMW
from the series when compared to each other? (3 Marks)
iv). Look at the BMW 5 series. Which quarter has the smallest spread of data? What is the
spread? (2 Marks)
QUESTION 3 (15 Marks)
(a) Define the term ‘histogram’ (2 Marks)
(b) Outline one advantages and one disadvantages of using a histogram in exploratory data analysis
(2 Marks)
(c) A Machine produces the following number of rejects in each successive period of five minutes
16 21 26 24 11 24 17 25 26 13
27 24 26 3 27 23 24 15 22 22
12 22 29 21 18 22 28 25 7 17
22 28 19 23 23 22 3 19 13 31
23 28 24 9 20 33 30 23 20 8
(i) Construct a frequency distribution from these data using seven class intervals of equal
width. (4 Marks)
(ii) Draw a histogram and use it to estimate the mode of the distribution. (4 Marks)
(ii) Calculate the mean. Comment on the data given the shape of the histogram and the
measures you have calculated. (3 Marks)
QUESTION 4 (15 Marks)
(a) What is Skewness? When is a curve said to be Skewed? (2 Marks)
(b) Classify each of the following variables as either measurable(continuous)or categorical. If a
variable is categorical, further classify it as either nominal or ordinal. Justify your answer.
(i) Classification of University degree
(ii) Fuel consumption of a car
(iii) Eye colour
(iv) The cost of insurance (8 Marks)
(a) Bens’s younger brother a third form practical geography student wishes to test whether there
could be some relationship between annual visits to a local market by all residents surrounding
the market. After a well-designed field study, he obtains the following figures:
Number of visits per year 21 13 19 18 17 17 14 20 10 11
Residents distance from 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.1
market (KM)
Required;
i. From the information above, what is the dependent variable and what is the explanatory
variable? (2 Marks)
ii. Plot a scatter diagram for the data and interpret it . (3 Marks)
