Question

Each of the following options below contains a data set. Identify the data set for which range does not serve as a good measure of dispersion.

• A. {-3, 2, 6, 4, 1, 7, 9, -1, 5 }
• B. {128, 118, 133, 154, 145, 138, 159, 149 }
• C. {-20, -13, -11, -8, -15, -10, -16, -18 }
• D. { 51, 1, 57, 59, 65, 53, 100, 55 }

Answer 1

The correct option is D { 51, 1, 57, 59, 65, 53, 100, 55 }

Range depends only on the extreme values of a data set. If even one of the extreme values lie far away from the rest of the data points, range fails to give a good estimate of the dispersion. In option (d) the largest and smallest values lie far away from the rest of the values. Hence, the calculated range does not represent the dispersion of data correctly.