Varatta Enterprises sells industrial plumbing valves. The following table lists the annual sales amounts for a portion of the salespeople in the organization for the most recent fiscal year.

Click on the datafile logo to reference the data.

Salesperson	Sales Amount ($1000)	Salesperson	Sales Amount ($1000)
Joseph	135	Wei	461
Jennifer	207	Samantha	389
Phillip	544	Erin	254
Stanley	323	Dominic	324
Luke	285	Charlie	186
Lexie	174	Amol	215
Margaret	335	Lenisa	422

a. Compute the mean (in $1000), variance (in $1000²), and standard deviation (in $1000) for these annual sales values. Round your answers to the nearest whole number.

Mean	___thousand
Variance	____thousand2
Standard deviation	_____thousand

b. In the previous fiscal year, the average annual sales amount was thousand with a standard deviation of thousand. Discuss any differences you observe between the annual sales amount in the most recent and previous fiscal years.

(i) The difference in the mean annual sales amount is very small and is most likely due to random change in demand for these products.

(ii) The sample mean annual sales amount and standard deviation for the previous fiscal year were significantly higher.

(iii) The sample mean annual sales amount and standard deviation for the previous fiscal year were significantly lower.