Describing the shape of a distribution involves looking at the number of modes,
ID: 3070035 • Letter: D
Question
Describing the shape of a distribution involves looking at the number of modes, determining if the distribution is symmetric or skewed, describing the skewness if it exists, and describing any unusual features, especially outliers. We most often look at a histogram and a boxplot to formulate a description. For extra practice, answer the questions below. After you submit your responses, you will be able to see the solutions as well as other student responses.
1) What characteristic of the shape of the distribution does a histogram show that a boxplot does not?
2) What characteristic of the shape of the distribution can you determine more precisely using a (modified) boxplot than a histogram?
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Explanation / Answer
Answer
(1) Histograms shows us the frequency of the data distribution and it is most commonly used when there is wide or little variance among the given frequencies. So, we can say that the histogram shows us the distribution type more clearly as compared to box plot and it is more suitable for showing the frequency based data.
(2) Box plot is more suitable to determine the 5 data values of the data set, i.e. it is useful to determine the minimum, maximum, median, first quartile and third quartile. Histogram never shows us these five values.