Comparing Values. In Exercises 13–16, use z scores to compare the given values.


Tallest and Shortest Men The tallest adult male was Robert Wadlow, and his height was 272 cm. The shortest adult male was Chandra Bahadur Dangi, and his height was 54.6 cm. Heights of men have a mean of 174.12 cm and a standard deviation of 7.10 cm. Which of these two men has the height that is more extreme?

Finding Standard Deviation from a Frequency Distribution. In Exercises 37–40, refer to the frequency distribution in the given exercise and compute the standard deviation by using the formula below, where x represents the class midpoint, f represents the class frequency, and n represents the total number of sample values. Also, compare the computed standard deviations to these standard deviations obtained by using Formula 3-4 with the original list of data values: (Exercise 37) 18.5 minutes; (Exercise 38) 36.7 minutes; (Exercise 39) 6.9 years; (Exercise 40) 20.4 seconds.

Standard deviation for frequency distribution

Significant Values. In Exercises 9–12, use the range rule of thumb to identify (a) the values that are significantly low, (b) the values that are significantly high, and (c) the values that are neither significantly low nor significantly high.

IQ Scores The Wechsler test is used to measure intelligence of adults aged 16 to 80. The mean test score is 100 and the standard deviation is 15.

Critical Thinking. For Exercises 5–20, watch out for these little buggers. Each of these exercises involves some feature that is somewhat tricky. Find the (a) mean, (b) median, (c) mode, (d) midrange, and then answer the given question.

Geography Majors The data listed below are estimated incomes (dollars) of students who graduated from the University of North Carolina (UNC) after majoring in geography. The data are based on graduates in the year 1984. The income of basketball superstar Michael Jordan (a 1984 UNC graduate and geography major) is included. Does his income have much of an effect on the measures of center? Based on these data, would the college have been justified by saying that the mean income of a graduate in their geography program is greater than \$250,000?

17,466 18,085 17,875 19,339 19,682 19,610 18,259 16,354 2,200,000

Resistant Measures Listed below are 10 wait times (minutes) for “Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster” at 10 AM (from Data Set 33 “Disney World Wait Times”). The data are listed in order from lowest to highest. Find the mean and median of these ten values. Then find the mean and median after excluding the value of 180, which appears to be an outlier. Compare the two sets of results. How much was the mean affected by the inclusion of the outlier? How much is the median affected by the inclusion of the outlier?

15 20 25 30 30 35 45 50 50 180 

In Exercises 29–32, compute the mean of the data summarized in the frequency distribution. Also, compare the computed means to the actual means obtained by using the original list of data values, which are as follows: (29) 31.4 minutes; (Exercise 30) 140.6 minutes; (Exercise 31) 55.2 years; (Exercise 32) 240.2 seconds.

Estimating Standard Deviation with the Range Rule of Thumb. In Exercises 29–32, refer to the data in the indicated exercise. After finding the range of the data, use the range rule of thumb to estimate the value of the standard deviation. Compare the result to the standard deviation computed using all of the data.

Audiometry Use the hearing measurements from Data Set 7 “Audiometry.” Does it appear that the amounts of variation are different for the right threshold measurements and the left threshold measurements?