Collection of Problems on Descriptive Statistics, Semester 1

1. A variable x takes only two values x1 and x2 with equal frequencies. Compute Mean
deviation about the arithmetic mean.
2. How is mean deviation about A affected when all the values are increased by a
constant amount a?
xi x
3. Suppose that the variable x takes positive values only and that the deviations

x
are small compared to . Show that in such a case
S2
xG x 1 2
2x
,
S
2
x H x 1 2
x
.
s2
x 1 2
x 8x
Mean( )
x xg s 2
2 2

2( x xg )
v
x

Fi '
4. Let x be a variable assuming the values i=1,2,k, with frequencies f i and let be the

Fi ''
corresponding cumulative frequency of the greater than type while are the
cumulative totals of the greater than type of these cumulative frequencies. If n be the
total frequency and
1 k 1 k
T1 Fi ' , T2 Fi ''
n i 1 n i 1
, show that
S 2T2 T1 T
2
1
2

.
5. Let there be k class intervals in a frequency table, each of width c. If f i be the
frequency for the ith class and xi the corresponding class mark, and if
i i
1 1
Fi f j , Fi ' Fi , S1 Fi , S 2 Fi '
j 1 j 1 n i n i
 x x k c( S1 1), S 2 c 2 ( 2 S 2 S1 S12 )
n being the total frequency, show that, .
2
x1 S 1
6. If the mean and variance of one set of values be and and those of another set be

x2 S 22
and respectively and each set has n values, then prove that the variance S 2 of the
combined set of values is given by,
4 S 2 2( S12 S 22 ) d 2 d x1 x 2
, where .
7. If two variables x and y are related as y=a+bx, then establish a relationship between
the quartile deviation of x and y.
8. Find the mean deviation about mean and standard deviation of the AP a, a+d,a+2d,
a+2nd and prove that the latter is greater than the former.
9. If in a series of observations we obtain m 1 values of magnitude x1, m2 values of

x
magnitude x2 and so on and if is the mean value of all the measurements , prove
that the standard deviation is given by,
m (k x )
r r
2

2
m r x k
, where, and k is any constant.
10. Show that if a variable takes the values 0,1,..,n with frequencies proportional to the

1, nC1 ,.., nCn

binomial coefficients respectively then the mean of the distribution is
n/2, the mean square deviation is n(n+1)/4 and the variance is n/4.
11. Show that if
S f k ( f k f k 1 ) ( f k f k 1 f k 2 ) ... ( f k f k 1 ... f 2 )

hS
f1 , f 2 ,.., f k AM x1
N
Where are the class frequencies then , where x1 is the mid-
point of the first class, h= class interval and N= Total frequency.