The article “A Nation Ablaze with Change”

(USA Today, July 3, 2001) gave the accompanying data on percentage increase in population between 1990 and 2000 for the 50 U.S. states. Also provided in the table is a column that indicates for each state whether the state is in the eastern or western part of the United States (the states are listed in order of population size):

a. Construct a stem-and-leaf display for percentage growth for the data set consisting of all 50 states.
Hints: Regard the observations as having two digits to the left of the decimal place. That is, think of an observation such as 8.5 as 08.5. It will also be easier to truncate leaves to a single digit; for example, a leaf of 8.5 could be truncated to 8 for purposes of constructing the display.

b. Comment on any interesting features of the data set.

Do any of the observations appear to be outliers?

c. Now construct a comparative stem-and-leaf display for the eastern and western states. Write a few sentences comparing the percentage growth distributions for eastern and western states.

Transcribed Image Text:

State Percentage Change East/West California 13.8 W Texas 22.8 W New York 5.5 E Florida 23.5 E Illinois 8.6 E Pennsylvania 3.4 E Ohio 4.7 E Michigan 6.9 E New Jersey 8.9 E Georgia 26.4 E North Carolina 21.4 E