DescriptionConsider the following example, then answer the following questions to explore aspects of the frequency distribution and its spreadsheet functionalities.

The number of patients at Central Valley Hospital who present at its emergency room with symptoms of a highly contagious virus on randomly selected days during an outbreak were as follows:

3233333436373942434546474849495052535454

For organizationalpurposes, an administrative intern at the hospital sorts the data into five classes:lower thirties, upper thirties, lower forties, upper forties, and lower fifties.

The intern recalls that a frequency distribution table is a collection of data sorted by counts or frequencies.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

The intern also recalls that a well-constructed frequency distribution table for a reasonable number of data points should routinelyhave at least five classes or categories but no more than fifteento twenty classes.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

The intern knows that the lower and upper class limits(LCLandUCL)for the first or lowest class of data would be what values?Record the values precisely without insignificantdigits, extra punctuation or characters.

LCL of first class:

UCL of first class:

The intern also knows that the lower class boundary (LCB) would be one-half unitbelowthe lower class limit and conversely theupper class boundary (UCB) would be one-half unitabovethe upper class limit?What are these boundaries for the first class?Record the values precisely without insignificantdigits.

LCB of first class:

UCB of first class:

The intern quickly scans and counts the sorted data, asserting thatthe frequency of patients with virus symptomspresenting at the hospital who fall into the first class(lower thirties) of any frequency distribution table organizing this data would be5.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

The intern double checks the count and properly corrects the frequency for the first class as 4.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

The intern is aware that currently the functionality of the FREQUENCY function functions differently,pardon the pun,in Google Sheets than it does in Microsoft Excel.In Sheets,it does provide a count of the data occurring in each class of data when used with all class limits; it also reports in a cell below the last answer the number of data points not counted yet.For Excel,the FREQUENCY function surprisingly reports the cumulative frequency for each class, or arunning total up to and including that class.Ultimately, the intern realizes that the frequency is the number of data points occurring in each class from lower class limit through upper class limit.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

The intern knows the relative frequency column in a frequency distribution table reports the percentage,decimal or fraction of data occurring in that class, relative to the total number of data points.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

The intern reports a total data count of 20 for this frequency distributionor data collection.

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree

Subsequently,the intern computes the relative frequency for the first class as 20%, or 4/20,or 1/5, or 0.2

Do you agree or disagree with the intern?

Agree

Disagree