Questions and Answers of Practical Business Statistics

Using the data from Table 2.6.8 of Chapter 2 for daily values for the Dow Jones Industrial Average: a. Find the standard deviation of the net change. b. Find the range of net
Using the data from Table 2.6.7 of Chapter 2 for the 30 Dow Jones Industrial companies percent changes since January 2015: a. Find the standard deviation of the percent change. b. Find the
Find the amount of variability in the 5-year percent change in housing prices for U.S. regions using the data from Table 4.3.5 of Chapter 4. TABLE 4.3.5 Percent Change in Housing Values over
Summarize the variability in the cost of a traditional funeral service using the standard deviation, based on the data in Table 3.8.10 of Chapter 3. TABLE 3.8.10 Cost of Traditional Funeral
Using the data from Table 3.8.2 in Chapter 3, find the standard deviation and range to summarize the typical variability (or uncertainty) of the market response to stock buyback announcements.
Find the standard deviation of the VAT taxes from Table 4.3.2 in Chapter 4. What does this tell you about international taxation practices from one country to another? TABLE 4.3.2 Value-Added
You are sales manager for a regional division of a beverage company. The sales goals for your representatives have an average of $768,000 with a standard deviation of $240,000. You have been
Your costs had been forecast as having an average of $138,000 with a standard deviation of $35,000. You have just learned that your suppliers are raising prices by 4% across the board. Now what are
Consider the average price of a hotel room in 21 U.S. cities (Table 5.5.8) for the first half of 2015. a. Find the average price of a major-city hotel room in the United States, based on this
Here are weights of recently produced sinks: 20.8, 20.9, 19.5, 20.8, 20.0, 19.8, 20.1, 20.5, 19.8, 20.3, 20.0, 19.7, 20.3, 19.5, 20.2, 20.2, 19.5, 20.5 Find the usual summary measure that tells
Consider interest rates on accounts at a sample of local banks: 3.00%, 4.50%, 4.90%, 3.50%, 4.75%, 3.50%, 3.50%, 4.25%, 3.75%, 4.00% a. Find the standard deviation of these interest
Summarize the variability in admission prices for the theme parks shown in Table 5.5.6 by reporting the standard deviation, the range, and the coefficient of variation. TABLE 5.5.6 Theme Park
Which variability measure is most useful for comparing variability in two different situations, adjusting for the fact that the situations have very different average sizes? Justify your choice.
a. What is the coefficient of variation? b. What are the measurement units of the coefficient of variation?
a. What is the variance?b. What are the measurement units of the variance?c. Which is the more easily interpreted variability measure, the standard deviation or the variance? Why?d. Once you know the
a. What is the traditional measure of variability? b. What other measures are also used?
What is variability?
Using the data from Table 2.6.8 of Chapter 2 for daily values for the Dow Jones Industrial Average: a. Find the mean net change. b. Find the median net change. c. Find the five-number
Using the data from Table 2.6.7 of Chapter 2 for the 30 Dow Jones Industrial companies percent changes since January 2015: a. Find the mean percent change. b. Find the median percent
Summarize prices of funeral services using the average and median, based on the data in Table 3.8.10 of Chapter 3. TABLE 3.8.10 Cost of Traditional Funeral Service Funeral Home Cost ($) Bleitz
Consider the data on CEO compensation in computer programming, data processing, and other related services firms from Table 3.8.7 of Chapter 3. a. Draw a detailed box plot. b. Find the 10th
A wine store carries 86 types of wine produced in 2007, 125 types from 2008, 73 from 2009, and 22 from 2010. Identify the types of wine as the elementary units for analysis. a. Find the mode of
A social group shows only movies of 100 min or less at its meetings. Consider the running times of selected films from a video library as shown in Table 4.3.10. a. What percentage of these
Using the data from Table 3.8.4 in Chapter 3, for the market values of the portfolio investments of the College Retirement Equities Growth Fund in the media sector: a. Find the average market
Using the data from Table 3.8.2 in Chapter 3, find the average and median to summarize the typical size of the market response to stock buyback announcements. TABLE 3.8.2 Market Response to
For the yields of municipal bonds (Table 3.8.1 in Chapter 3): a. Find the average yield. b. Find the median yield. c. Find the quartiles. d. Find the five-number summary. e.
If you had a list of the miles per gallon for various cars, which of the following is the only possibility for the 65th percentile: 65 cars, 65%, $13,860, or 27 miles per gallon?
Your factory’s inventory level was measured 12 times last year, with the results shown below. Find the average inventory level during the year. 313, 891, 153, 387, 584, 162, 742, 684, 277, 271,
Consider the revenues (in $ millions) for the top 12 companies in the Fortune 500 (from http://fortune.com/ fortune500/ accessed October 20, 2015.), as shown in Table 4.3.6. a. Find the
Find the upper quartile for the following box plot. 20 40 60 80 100 Quality 20
Given the state taxes and populations for the East North Central States, as shown in Table 4.3.4, compute the percapita state tax burden for this entire region. TABLE 4.3.4 State Population and
A large outdoor recreational facility has three entrances. According to automatic vehicle counters, last year 11,976 vehicles entered at the first entrance, 24,205 at the second, and 7,474 at the
Your marketing research team has identified four distinct groups of people (Type A, B, C, and D, where D represents “all others”) according to personality traits. You figure that market
Active consumers make up 13.6% of the market and spend an average of $16.23 per month on your product. Passive consumers make up 23.8% of the market and spend $9.85. The remaining consumers have
Your firm has the following securities outstanding: common stock (market value $4,500,000; investors demand 17% annual rate of return), preferred stock (market value $1,700,000; current annual yield
Some people who work at your company would like to visually compare the income distributions of people who buy various products in order to better understand customer selections. For each of 16
Your company is trying to estimate the total size of its potential market. A survey has been designed, and data have been collected. A histogram of the data shows a small amount of skewness. Which
What is a box plot? What additional detail is often included in a box plot?
What is the five-number summary?
What are the quartiles?
What is the mode?
How should you deal with exceptions when summarizing a set of data?
What is the summarization of a data set? Why is it important?
Using the data from Table 2.8 of Chapter 2 for daily values for the Dow Jones Industrial Average: a. Construct a histogram for net change during September 2015. b. Describe the shape of the
Business firms occasionally buy back their own stock for various reasons, sometimes when they view the market price as a bargain compared to their view of its true worth. It has been observed that
Using the data from Table 2.7 of Chapter 2 for the 30 Dow Jones Industrial companies: a. Construct a histogram for percent change since January 2015. b. Describe the shape of the
Consider the percentage change in the value of the dollar with respect to Asia-Pacific currencies over approximately three quarters from the start of 2015 through mid-October (Table 3.8.13). a.
Continuing with the revenue loss data of Table 3.8.11: a. Find the logarithm for each data value. Omit the two firms with zero revenue loss from your answers to this problem. b. Construct a
When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code was revised in 1986, Congress granted some special exemptions to specific corporations. The U.S. government’s revenue losses due to some of these
There are many different and varied formats and strategies for radio stations, but one thing they all have in common is the need for an audience in order to attract advertisers. Table 3.8.8 shows the
Consider the compensation paid to CEOs of computer programming, data processing, and other related services firms, as shown in Table 3.8.7. a. Construct a histogram. b. Describe the
Consider CREF, the College Retirement Equities Fund, which manages retirement accounts for employees of nonprofit educational and research organizations. CREF manages a large and diversified
Consider the yields (as an interest rate, in percent per year) of municipal bonds, as shown in Table 3.8.1. a. Construct a histogram of this data set. b. Based on the histogram, what values
What distribution shape is represented by the histogram in Fig. 3.8.4 of hospital length of stay (in days)? Fig. 3.8.4 20- 10 10 20 30 40 Days
What distribution shape is represented by the histogram in Fig. 3.8.3 of volume (in thousands of units) by sales region?Fig. 3.8.3 40 30 20 10 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Volume
What distribution shape is represented by the histogram in Fig. 3.8.2 of profit margins for consumer products? Figure 3.8.2 50 40 30 20 10 20 10 15 25 30 Percent
What distribution shape is represented by the histogram in Fig. 3.8.1 of voltages measured for incoming components as part of a quality control program? Fig 3.8.1 25 20 15 10 5- 100 102 104 106
Suppose there is an outlier in your data. You plan to analyze the data twice: once with and once without the outlier. What result would you be most pleased with? Why?
When is it appropriate to set aside an outlier and analyze only the rest of the data?
What is an outlier?
Are all data sets normally distributed?
When a real data set is normally distributed, should you expect the histogram to be a perfectly smooth bell-shaped curve? Why or why not?
What is a number line?
What is a list of numbers?
As part of your firm’s loyalty system, there is a database with information about customers who have joined, including the size of their immediate family, the number of cars they own, and their
Suppose a data set includes the variable “business organization” recorded as 1 = sole proprietor, 2 = partnership, 3 = S corporation, 4 = C corporation. Is this a quantitative or qualitative
The ease of assembling products is recorded using the scale 1 = very easy, 2 = easy, 3 = moderate, 4 = difficult, 5 = very difficult. Is this a quantitative, ordinal, or nominal variable?
Suppose a database includes the variable “security type” for which 1= common stock, 2 = preferred stock, 3 = bond, 4 = futures contract, and 5 = option. Is this a quantitative or qualitative
Consider the information about selected cell phones shown in Table 2.6.5. a. What is an elementary unit for this data set? b. Is this a univariate, bivariate, or multivariate data
One column of a large inventory spreadsheet shows the name of the company that sold you each part. a. Is this variable quantitative or qualitative? b. Is this variable ordinal, nominal, or
A quality control inspector has rated each batch produced today on a scale from A through E, where A represents the best quality and E is the worst. a. Is this variable quantitative or
You are looking at the sales figures for 35 companies. a. Is this data set univariate, bivariate, or multivariate? b. Is this variable qualitative or quantitative? c. Is this variable
Consider a listing of the bid price and the ask price for 18 different U.S. Treasury bonds at the close of trading on a particular day. a. Is this univariate, bivariate, or multivariate
Your firm’s sales, listed each quarter for the past 5 years, should be helpful for strategic planning. a. Is this data set cross-sectional or time-series? b. Is this univariate,
In order to figure out how much of the advertising budget to spend on various types of media (TV, radio, newspapers, etc.), you are looking at a data set that lists how much each of your competitors
If you think about a telephone directory as a large data set, what are the elementary units?
Classify a data set found on the Internet consisting of sales, profits, and number of employees for 100 banking firms. Be sure to provide standard information about the number of variables, who
Choose a firm and identify a database (in general terms) that would be important to it. Identify three different kinds of data sets contained within this database. For each of these three data sets,
Which are simpler to analyze, time-series or cross-sectional data?
What are the qualitative data?
What can be done with multivariate data?
What can be done with multivariate data?
In what way do bivariate data represent more than just two separate univariate data sets?
What is an elementary unit?
What is a variable?
What is a data set?
While your longer-term goal is to better understand your customer base by seeing how their attitudes correlate with purchasing activity, you realize that (at the moment) the information you would
The results of the customer survey just arrived as a spreadsheet from the firm that was hired to do the research, and you are eager to understand what can be learned from these responses. Naturally
Using data on the characteristics of houses that sold recently in a city of interest, you would like to specify the way in which features such as the size (in square feet) and number of bedrooms
Your boss has asked you to take a close look at the marketing data that just came in and would like you to report back with your overall impressions of its quality and usefulness. Which main activity
You think that one of the machines may be broken, but you are not sure because even when it is working properly there are a few badly manufactured parts. When you analyze the rate at which defective
You are trying to determine the quality of the latest shipment of construction materials based on careful observation of a sample. Which basic activity of statistics will help you reach your goal?
By looking carefully at graphs of data, your marketing department has identified three distinct segments of the marketplace with different needs and price levels. Which basic activity of statistics
Your firm has been accused of discrimination. Your defense will argue in part that the imbalance is so small that it could have happened at random and that, in fact, no discrimination exists. Which
You have collected and explored the data on Internet information requests. Before continuing on to use the data for estimation and hypothesis testing, you want to develop a framework that identifies
You are wondering whom to interview, how many to interview, and how to process the results so that your questions can be answered at the lowest possible cost. Identify the basic activity of
Your work group would like to estimate the size of the market for high-quality stereo components in New Orleans but cannot find any reliable data that are readily available. Which basic activity of
Your company has been collecting detailed data for years on customer contacts, including store purchases, telephone inquiries, and Internet orders, and you would like to systematically use this
Before you proceed with the analysis of a large accounting data set that has just been collected, your boss has asked you to take a close look at the data to check for problems and surprises and
If your factories produce too much, then you will have to pay to store the extra inventory. If you produce too little, then customers will be turned away and profits will be lost. Therefore, you

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