Question

What are the advantages of squaring a difference for calculating variance and standard deviation?

• A. Squaring makes each term positive so that values above the mean do not cancel below the mean.
• B. Squaring adds more weight to the larger differences, and in many cases this extra weight is appropriate since points further from the mean may be more significant.
• C. It complicates the calculations
• D. All are incorrect

Answer 1

Answer: (A), (B)

The correct options are
A Squaring makes each term positive so that values above the mean do not cancel below the mean.
B Squaring adds more weight to the larger differences, and in many cases this extra weight is appropriate since points further from the mean may be more significant.

Since,

${\sigma }_x=\sqrt{\frac{\sum (x_i-\overline{x}{)}^2}{N}}$

So, we can say that opion $A$ and $B$ are correct.