Unit 3: Central Tendency

Problems on Measures of Central Tendency

1. From the following raw data.

8 9 19 10 11 12 12 13 13 13 14 14
4 14 15 15 26 16 14 16 36 27 17 18
a. Compute the mean, median and mode
b. Compute the Q1, Q3, D5, D8, P35, and P85
c. Compute the mid – hinge.
d. Discuss the shape of the distribution.
2. From the following frequency distribution
Income($) 40 50 62 70 90 100
No. of persons 15 20 6 25 9 4
a. Compute the mean, median and mode and discuss the shape of distribution.
b. Compute the lower quartile, upper quartile, 5th deciles and 90th percentile
c. Find the mid-hinge
3. From the following frequency distribution
marks 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90
No. of 15 20 10 35 20 25 30
stu.
a. Compute the mean, median and mode and discuss the shape of the distribution.
b. Compute the Q1, Q2, Q3, D7, and P70
c. Compute the mid-hinge.
4. The following data are the marks in statistics obtained by the entire 100 students at
college X.
Marks below: 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
No. of stu. : 6 15 26 41 58 77 87 93 97 100
a. Compute the mean.
b. Compute the limit for central 50%
5. Following is the distribution of marks obtained by 50 students
Marks more than No. of students
0 50
10 46
20 40
30 20
40 10
50 3
a. Calculate the median marks.
b. If 60% of the students pass the test, find the minimum marks obtained by pass
candidate (Hint: find P40 or D4)
c. Find the limit for central 30% and find their range. (HINT: FIND P35 and P65)

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Unit 3: Central Tendency

6. In a class of 50 students 10 have failed and their average marks were 2.5. The total marks
secured by the entire class were 281. Find the average marks of those who have passed.
7. Mean of 100 items was 50. Later on it was founds that two items were misread as 92 and
8 instead of 192 and 88. Find the correct mean.
8. Arithmetic mean of 98 items is 50. Two items 60and 70 were left out at the time of
calculation. What is the correct mean of all the items?
9. From the information given below.
Factory A Factory B
No. of wage earners 250 200
Average daily wages Rs. 12 Rs. 13.8
a. Which factory pays larger amounts as daily wage?
b. What is the average daily wage for the workers of two factories?
10. The table given below represents the daily wage distribution of 130 workers. Find out the
range of income of the middle 60% workers.
Wages (Rs per 70 85 100 115 130 145 160 175
weeks)more than
No. of workers 130 122 109 79 44 26 14 5
a. Find the minimum income of top 35% workers.
b. Find the maximum income of initial 25% workers.
11. X LTD. has 5 plants producing PVC pipes. The mean monthly production of 4 plants for
1982 was 73000 meters and that of the fifth plant was 85000 meters. Calculate the
average production of the five plants.
12. The mean mark of 100 students was found to be 40. Later on it was discovered that a
score 53 was misread as 83. Find the correct mean corresponding to the correct score.
What will be the mean marks when the wrong score is omitted?
13. The average mark secured by 25 boys in an examination is 64. There are 15 girls in the
class. The average marks secured by the whole class are 66.25. Find the average marks
secured by the girls.
14. Calculate the mean, median, mode and the quartiles from the following frequency
distribution.
class 61-66 55-60 49-54 43-48 37-42 31-36 25-30
frequency 1 2 5 10 3 2 1
Also discuss the shape of the frequency distribution.
15. The number of solar heating systems available to the public is quite large, and their heat-
storage capacities are quite varied. Here is a distribution of heat-storage capacity (in
days) of 28 systems that were tested recently by University Laboratories, Inc.:

days 0-0.99 1-1.99 2-2.99 3-3.99 4-4.99 5-5.99 6-6.99

frequency 2 4 6 7 5 3 1
a) Compute the mean, median and mode of the data.
16. Davis Furniture Company has a revolving credit agreement with the First National Bank.
The loan showed the following ending monthly balances last year:
Jan. $121,300 Apr. 72800 JULY. 58700 OCT. 52800 FEB. 1123000 MAY. 728000
AUG. 61100 NOV. 49200 MAR. 72800 JUNE. 57300 SEPT. 50400 DEC. 46100

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Unit 3: Central Tendency

The company is eligible for a reduced rate of interest if its average monthly balance is
over $65000. Does it qualify? Also compute the mid hinge.
17. Child –Care Community Nursery is eligible for a county social services grant as long as
the average age of its children stays below 9.if these data represent the ages of all the
children currently attending Child-Care, do they qualify for the grant?
8 5 9 10 9 12 7 12 13 7 8
18. Child –Care Community Nursery can continue to be supported by the county social
services office as long as the average annual income of the families whose children attend
the nursery is below $12500.The family incomes of the attending children are
$14500 $15600 $12500 $8600 $7800 $6500 $5900 $10200
$8800 $14300 $13900
a. Does Child –Care qualify now for county support?
b. If the answer to part (a) is no, by how much must the average family income fall
for it to qualify?
c. If the answer to part (a) is yes, by how much can average family income raise and
Child-Care still stay eligible?

19. These data represent the ages of patients admitted to a small hospital on February 28,
1996
85 75 66 43 40 88 80 56 56 67 89 83
65 53 75 87 83 52 44 48
a. Construct a frequency distribution with classes 40-49, 50-59 etc.
b. Compute the sample mean from the frequency distribution.
c. Compute the sample mean from the raw data.
d. Plot the box and whisker plot of the given raw data.
20. The frequency distribution below represents the time in seconds needed to serve a sample
of customers by cashiers at BullsEye Discount Store in December 1996.
Time in seconds Frequency
20-29 6
30-39 16
40-49 21
50-59 29
60-69 25
70-79 22
80-89 11
90-99 7
100-109 4
110-119 0
120-129 2
a. Compute the sample mean. And also compute the median of the above frequency
distribution.

21. The owner of pets RU’s is interested in building a new store. The owner will build if the
average number of animals sold during the first 6months of 1995 is at least 300 and the

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Unit 3: Central Tendency

overall monthly average for the year is at least 285. The data for 1995 are as follows:

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
234 216 195 400 315 274 302 291 275 300 375 450
a) What is the owner’s decision and why?
b) Compute the five number summary and plot the box and whisker.
c) Compute the mid hinge.
22. The production manager of Hinton Press is determining the average time needed to
photograph one printing plate. Using a stopwatch and observing the plate makers, he
collects the following times (in seconds):
20.4 20.0 22.2 23.8 21.3 25.1 21.2 22.9 28.2 24.3 22.0 24.7
25.7 24.9 22. 24.4 24.3 23.6 23.2 21.0
An average per-plate time of less than 23.0 seconds indicates satisfactory productivity.
Does it satisfactory?
23. National Tire Company holds reserve funds in short – term marketable securities. The
ending daily balance (in millions) of the marketable securities account for 2 weeks is
shown below:
Week 1: $1.973 $1.970 $1.972 $1.975 $1.976
Week 2: 1.969 1.892 1.893 1.887 1.895
What was the average (mean) amount invested in marketable securities during
a) The first week?
b) The second week?
c) The 2 week period?
d) An average balance over the2 weeks of more than $1.970 million would qualify
National for higher interest rates. Does it qualify?
24. M.T. Smith travels the eastern United States as a sales representative for a textbook
publisher. She is paid on a commission basis related to volume. Her quarterly earnings
over the last 3 years are given below.
1st Quarter 2nd 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter
Quarter
Year 1 $10000 $5000 $25000 $15000
Year 2 20000 10000 20000 10000
Year 3 30000 15000 45000 50000
a) Calculate separately M.T.’s average earnings in each of the four quarters.
b) Calculate separately M.T.’s average quarterly earnings in each of the 3 years.
25. Lillian Tyson has been the chairperson of the county library committee for 10 year. She
contends that during her tenure she has managed the bookmobile repair budget better
than her predecessor did. Here are data for bookmobile repair for 15 years:
Year 1992 199 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978

Town 300 280 250 270 260 240 190 210 220 240 300 200 150 100 900
budget $

a) Calculate the average annual budget for the last 5 years (1988-1992)
b) Calculate the average annual budget for the first 5 years in office (1983-1987)
c) Calculate the average annual budget for the 5 years before she was elected (1978-
1982)

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Unit 3: Central Tendency

26. Swifty Markets compares prices charged for identical items in all of its food stores. Here
are the prices charged by each store for a pound of bacon last week.
$1.08 0.98 1.09 1.24 1.33 1.14 1.55 1.08 1.22 1.05
a. Calculate the median price per pound.
b. Calculate the mean price per pound.
27. For the following frequency distribution, determine
a. The median class.
b. The number of the item that represents the median.
c. The estimated value of the median for these data.

Class frequency
100-149 12
150-199 14
200-249 27
250-299 58
300-349 72
350-399 63
400-449 36
450-499 18
28. Meridian Trucking maintains mileage records on all of its rolling equipment. Here are
weekly mileage records for its trucks.
810 450 756 789 210 657 589 488 876 689 1450 560
469 890 987 559 788 943 447 775
a. Calculate the median miles a truck traveled.
b. Calculate the mean for the 20 trucks.
c. Plot box and whisker plot.
29. The North Carolina Consumer’s Bureau has conducted a survey of cable television
providers in the state. Here are the numbers of channels they offer in basic service:
32 28 31 15 25 14 12 29 22 28 29 32
33 24 26 8 35
a. Calculate the median number of channels provided.
b. Calculate the mean number of channels provided..
c. Which value is the better measure of the central tendency of these data?
30. For the following frequency distribution,
a. Which number item represents the median?
b. Which class contains the median?
c. What is the estimated value of the median for these data?
d. Calculate the mean.
class frequency
10-19 8
20-29 15
30-39 23
40-49 37
50-59 46
60-69 52

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Unit 3: Central Tendency

70-79 84
80-89 97
90-99 16
100&above 5

31. The following data represents weights of game fish caught on the charter boat Slick
drifter:
class 0-24 25-49 50-74 75-99 100-124
frequency 5 13 16 8 6
a) Estimate the median weight of the fish caught.
b) Compute the mean for these data.
c) Plot the box-and –whisker.
32. The Chicago Transit Authority thinks that excessive speed on its buses increases
maintenance cost. It believes that a reasonable median time from O’Hare Airport to John
Hancock Center is about 30 minutes. From the following sample data (in minutes) can
you help them determine whether the buses have been driven at excessive speeds? If you
conclude from these data that they have, what explanation might you get from the bus
drivers?
17 32 21 22 29 19 29 34 33 22 28 33
52 29 43 39 44 34 30 41
33. Here are the ages in years of the cars worked on by the village Autohaus last week
5 6 3 6 11 7 9 10 2 4 10 6
2 1 5
a. Compute the mode for this data set.
b. Compute the mean of the data set.
c. Obtains the quartiles and plot the box- and -whisker.
34. The ages of a sample of the students attending SANDHILLS Community College this
semester are:
19 17 15 20 23 41 33 21 18 20 18 33
32 29 24 19 18 20 17 22 55 19 22 25
28 30 44 19 20 39
a. Construct a frequency distribution with intervals 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34 and
35 & older.
b. Estimate the modal value and mean.
c. Compute the mean of the raw data.
d. Find the five number summary and plot the box-and-whisker
35. A librarian polled 20 different people as they left the library and asked them how many
books they checked out. Here are the responses:
1 0 2 2 3 4 2 1 2 0 2 2
3 1 0 7 3 5 4 2
a. Compute the mode for this data set.
b. Compute the mean for this data set.
c. Find the five number summary and plot the box –and-whisker.
36. The ages of residents of Twin Lakes Retirement Village have this frequency distribution:
class 47-51.9 52- 57- 62- 67- 72- 77-
56.9 61.9 66.9 71.9 76.9 81.9

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Unit 3: Central Tendency

frequency 4 9 13 42 39 20 9
a) Estimate the modal value of the distribution.
b) Calculate the mean, median
c) Calculate the first, second and third quartiles.
37. What is the modal value of the following distribution?
a. hair color black brunette redhead blonde
Frequency 11 24 6 18
b. blood type AB O A B
Frequency 4 12 35 16
38. The number of apartments in 27 apartment complexes in Cary, North Carolina, is given
below
91 79 66 98 127 139 154 147 192 88 97 92
87 142 127 184 145 162 95 89 86 98 145 129
149 158 241

a. Construct the frequency distribution using intervals 66-87, 88-109, … 201-241.

b. Estimate the modal value, mean, median
c. Calculate the first, second and third quartiles.
d. Find the five –number-summary and plot the box-and-whisker.