STATISTICAL METHODS
EXERCISES: Descriptive statistics (Chapter 3)
Question 1
A survey of 10 claims (in Rand) from a medical aid yielded the following data:
421 507 572 415 812
456 615 489 636 553
It was subsequently discovered that the R812 amount (bold and underlined number above) should have been
recorded as R512. The original data is the data as it appears above. The corrected data is the above data with
the R812 payment correctly changed to R512.
Comparing the original and the corrected data, which one of the following statements is false?
a) Mean < Median < Mode for the original data
b) The mean is affected by the error
c) The 10th percentile is unaffected by the error
d) The variability is affected by the error
e) The range is affected by the error
Question 2
A risk analyst working for an insurance company in Gauteng is interested in the distribution of accident claims
processed by the company. He collected data on the number of accident claims per day processed by the
company on a random sample of 40 days. The raw data are as follows:
2 1 2 1 2 1 1 0 2 4 3 0 0 1 0 8 1 5 7 5
1 4 2 3 2 6 3 3 3 3 0 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 3 4
1. What are the best measures of central tendency and dispersion for this data?
2. What is the value of the mode?
3. Calculate the average number of claims per day
4. Calculate the variance of the number of claims per day
5. Find the 35th percentile value
1
Question 3
A construction company specialises in the construction of apartment buildings. To date, they have constructed
10 buildings in the city centre as part of a project to resurrect the city. The costs of these projects are given
below (in millions of Rand).
26.3 28.3 29.4 32.8 36.4 36.9 42.5 46.2 47.8 52.5
1. The 80th percentile is equal to:
a) 8.00 b) 8.80 c) 46.20 d) 47.48 e) 47.80
2. The interquartile range is equal to:
a) 46.600 b) 17.475 c) 29.125 d) 8.250 e) 2.750
3. Which one of the following is true?
a) Mean = 36.65
b) Standard deviation = 8.54
c) Coefficient of variation = 23.75%
d) Range = 52.5
e) All four other statements are false
Question 4
An investment analyst intends to invest in assets in a certain country. He will only invest if returns on the
country’s assets are positive and less volatile. He collects data based on a random sample of ten monthly
returns on a broad based portfolio of the country’s assets. The data are as follows:
0.04 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.08
1. The median is equal to:
a) 0.0400 b) 0.0500 c) 0.0550 d) 0.0588 e) 0.0800
2. The 65th percentile is equal to:
a) 0.0450 b) 0.0460 c) 0.0588 d) 0.0650 e) 0.0685
3. The mean is equal to:
a) 0.0400 b) 0.0550 c) 0.0588 d) 0.0671 e) 0.4700
4. The variance is equal to:
a) 0.0002 b) 0.0003 c) 0.0154 d) 0.0164 e) 0.1281
2
Question 5
Consider the following stem-and-leaf plot of a random variable X:
Stem Leaf (leaf unit = 1)
4 2 7
5 0 2 3
6 1 4 5 6 7
7 1 1 1 5 6 9 9
8 1 3 4 6 7 7
9 3 4 9
10 5
1. The best measures of location and spread for this data are the:
a) Mean and standard deviation
b) Mean and interquartile range
c) Mean and coefficient of variation
d) Median and variance
e) Median and interquartile range
2. Calculate the mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, 3 rd quartile and P18
Question 6
Consider the following data for a random variable X:
3.1 4.4 5.0 5.1 6.1 6.3 6.4 7.0 7.0 7.3
7.5 7.6 8.1 8.1 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.7 8.7 8.7
8.9 9.0 9.2 9.3 9.5 9.7 9.7 10.1 10.3 10.7
Which one of the following statements is false?
a) The range is equal to 7.6
b) The 30th percentile is in position 9.3 of the ordered dataset
c) If the data above are grouped into class intervals where the first class is 3 x 4 , the estimated mode
is equal to 8.5
d) If 15% of customers waited longer than x minutes to be served, the value of x is the 15th percentile of
waiting times
e) The value of the fourth decile is equal to 7.8
1
Question 7
A sample of 100 employees were given a manual dexterity test. The following table gives the frequency
distribution of the dexterity scores (ranging from 1 to 10) and the number of people who attained the scores.
Score Number of persons
1 7
2 9
3 12
4 14
5 13
6 9
7 8
8 11
9 10
10 7
Which one of the following statements is true?
a) The mean is 5.4
b) The mode is 14
c) The standard deviation is 2.672 (to 3 decimal places)
Question 8
An agency that deals with consumer affairs is interested in evaluating the weight distribution of a product that
was recently introduced in the market. In a survey conducted by the agency, 30 items of the product were
randomly selected and the weights (in grams) of the items were measured. The data are summarised as follows:
Product weight in grams Frequency
63 x 66 2
66 x 69 5
69 x 72 9
72 x 75 6
75 x 78 5
78 x 81 2
81 x 84 1
1. Estimate the modal and the mean product weight
2. Estimate the range, variance and coefficient of variation of product weight
2
Question 9
In marketing, the main purpose of advertising campaigns is to support sales. One component of this is the
ability of the advert to effectively communicate the message for a particular product. The creative manager
at an advertising company wants to know whether consumers are able to correctly recall and link their most
recent six adverts to the products being advertised. The data in the following table show the number of adverts
correctly associated with the products for a random sample of consumers.
1. Calculate the mode and the average number of adverts correctly associated with products
2. Calculate the range, variance and coefficient of variation of the number of adverts correctly associated with
products
Question 10
A study was conducted to investigate the average cellphone expenditure per month of students in a class. A
random sample of students was selected from the class and the data obtained are displayed in the following
histogram:
1. Estimate the modal and the average monthly cellphone expenditure
2. Estimate the range, variance and coefficient of variation of monthly cellphone expenditure
3
Question 11
The time taken to process documentation at a service counter at the bank for customers who were opening a
banking account for the first time were recorded.
1. Estimate the modal and the average time taken to process documentation
2. Estimate the range, variance and coefficient of variation of time taken to process documentation
Question 12
Compare the CV’s for the four variables in Question 8, Question 9, Question 10 and Question 11. Comment
on the relative variability of the four variables.
SOLUTIONS
Question 1
A
Question 2
1. Median and interquartile range as distribution is positively skewed
2. Mode = 2
3. Average = 2.375
4. Variance = 3.522
5. 35th percentile = 1.35
Question 3
1. D
2. B
3. C
4
Question 4
1. C
2. E
3. C
4. B
Question 5
1. A
2. Mean = 72.63
Median = 75
Mode = 71
Range = 63
Standard deviation = 16.24
Coefficient of variation = 22.05%
3rd quartile = 86
P18 = 53.32
Question 6
D
Question 7
A
Question 8
1. Estimated mode = 70.5
Estimated mean = 72.2
2. Estimated range = 21
Estimated variance = 19.67
Estimated coefficient of variation = 6.14%
Question 9
1. Mode = 3
Mean = 2.93
2. Range = 6
Variance = 2.43
Coefficient of variation = 53.11%
5
Question 10
1. Estimated mode = 250
Estimated mean = 328.10
2. Estimated range = 500
Estimated variance = 15765.57
Estimated coefficient of variation = 38.27%
Question 11
1. Estimated mode = 12.5
Estimated mean = 12.78
2. Estimated range = 30
Estimated variance = 42.57
Estimated coefficient of variation = 51.06%
Question 12
Q8 (product weight) CV = 6.14%
Q9 (number of adverts correctly associated with products) CV = 53.11%
Q10 (monthly cellphone expenditure) CV = 38.27%
Q11 (time taken to process documentation) CV = 51.06%
Product weight has the least amount of variability of the four variables
Number of adverts correctly associated with products has the highest relative variability
Time taken to process documentation is more variable than monthly cellphone expenditure
