MATH 4: STATISTICS

Measures of
Relative
Position
 TOPICS

Measures of Relative Position

z-Scores

Percentiles

Quartiles

Box-and Whisker Plots

Stem and Leaf Diagrams

Other measures of location that describe
or locate the noncentral position of the
set of data are referred to as measures
of relative position, such as z-scores,
percentiles, and quartiles.
Z-SCORES

The number of standard deviations

between a data value and the mean is
known as the data value’s z-score or
standard score.
 EXAMPLE 1: Z-SCORES

Raul has taken two tests in his chemistry class. He

scored 72 on the first test, for which the mean of all
scores was 65 and the standard deviation was 8. He
received a 60 on a second test, for which the mean
of all scores was 45 and the standard deviation was
12. In comparison to the other students, did Raul do
better on the first test or the second test?
FIRST SECOND
Score: 72 Score: 60
Mean: 65 Mean: 45
SD: 8 SD: 12
 FIRST SECOND
Score: 72 Score: 60
Mean: 65 Mean: 45
SD: 8 SD: 12

These z-scores indicate that, in comparison to his classmates,

Raul scored better on the second test than he did on the first

test.
 PERCENTILES
Most standardized examinations provide scores in terms of

percentiles, which are defined as follows:

The following formula can be used to find the percentile that

corresponds to a particular data value in a set of data.

 Example 2 - Find a Percentile
On a reading examination given to 900 students,
Elaine’s score of 602 was higher than the scores of
576 of the students who took the examination. What
is the percentile for Elaine’s score?
Solution:

Elaine’s score of 602 places her at the 64th percentile.

 Quartiles
The three numbers Q1, Q2, and Q3 that partition a ranked

data set into four (approximately) equal groups are called

the quartiles of the data.

For instance, for the data set below, the values Q1 = 11, Q2 =
29, and Q3 = 104 are the quartiles of the data.
 The quartile Q1 is called the first
quartile. The quartile Q2 is called the

second quartile. It is the median of

the data. The quartile Q3 is called the

third quartile.

The following method of finding

quartiles makes use of medians.

EXAMPLE 3
The following table lists the calories per 100 milliliters of 25

popular sodas. Find the quartiles for the data.

 Solution
Step 1: Rank the data as shown in the following table.

Step 2: The median of these 25 data values has a rank

of 13. Thus the median is 43. The second quartile Q2 is
the median of the data, so Q2 = 43.
Step 3: There are 12 data values less than the median
and 12 data values greater than the median. The first

quartile is the median of the data values less than the

median. Thus, Q1 is the mean of the data values with

ranks 6 and 7.
The third quartile is the median of the data
values greater than the median. Thus Q3 is
the mean of the data values with ranks of 19
and 20.
A box-and-whisker plot (sometimes called a
box plot) is often used to provide a visual
summary of a set of data.
A box-and-whisker plot shows the median, the
first and third quartiles, and the minimum and
maximum values of a data set.
BOX-AND-
WHISKER PLOTS
 Construct a box-and-whisker plot for the
data set in Example 5.
Solution:
For the data set in Example 5, we determined
that Q1 = 39, Q2 = 43, and Q3 = 51.5.
The minimum data value for the data set is
26, and the maximum data value is 73. Thus
the box-and-whisker plot is shown below.
 STEM AND LEAF DIAGRAMS

The relative position of each data value in

a small set of data can be graphically
displayed by using a stem and leaf
diagram. For instance, consider the
following Mathematics Test Scores:
65, 72, 96, 86, 43, 61, 75, 86, 49,
68, 98, 74, 84, 78, 85, 75, 86, 73
A Stem and Leaf Diagram of a Set of Mathematics Test Scores

Stems Leaves
4 3 9

6 1 5 8

7 2 3 4 5 5 8

8 4 5 6 6 6

9 6 8
Legend: 8 | 6 represents 86