We are given the heights of Ms. Joy's dance students.
Height (Inches)
60
64
62
69
64
63
65
64
66
73
74
63
62
65
64
68
70
66
63
61
We are asked to use a graphing calculator to make a box-and-whisker plot. First, let's introduce the data. We will push STAT, choose Edit, and enter all the above values in the first column.
Having entered the values, we have to instruct the calculator that we want to graph a box-and-whisker plot. Push 2ND and Y=, then choose one of the plots in the list. Make sure to turn the plot On, set the Type to box-and-whisker, and assign L1 as XList.
To graph the box-and-whisker plot of the data, we will push GRAPH. Note that we may need to change the window size so that it spans the length of the box-and-whiskers plot. To do so, we push WINDOW.
Looking at the box-and-whisker plot, we can see that right whisker is longer than the left whisker. Therefore, the data is positively skewed.
b
We know from Part A that the distribution is positively skewed, so we should use the five-number summary to describe the center and spread of the data. To do so, push STAT and scroll right until we reach CALC. Choose the first option, 1-Var Stats. Select L1 and scroll down to find the five-number summary of the data.
Let's summarize our results in a table.
Heights
Minimum
60
Lower Quartile
63
Median
64
Upper Quartile
67
Maximum
74
The heights range from 60 to a maximum of 74 inches. The median is 64 inches. In every data sample half of the data is between the lower and upper quartiles. Therefore, half of the heights fall between 63 and 67 inches.
