Ask a New Question
Menu

page 9 of 10

5 of 55 of 5 Items

Question
Here are the blood pressure readings for Dr. Jackson’s patients yesterday. The systolic blood pressure numbers (top numbers) are given. Which measure of variability—MAD or IQR—best represents the shape of the distribution? Enter 1 for MAD or 2 for IQR.

70, 79, 82, 90, 96, 110, 120, 134, 139, 142, 148, 150, 152, 155, 161

(1 point)

1 answer

To determine which measure of variability—MAD (Mean Absolute Deviation) or IQR (Interquartile Range)—best represents the shape of the distribution of the given systolic blood pressure readings, we should consider the characteristics of the data.

  1. The data appears to be ordered and is not heavily skewed; it does not contain any extreme outlier values.
  2. The IQR is a robust measure of variability that is not affected by extreme values and conveys information about the middle 50% of the data.
  3. The MAD considers the average deviation from the mean, which can be influenced by extreme values.

Since the data does not exhibit significant outliers or skewness, the IQR would be the more appropriate measure of variability to represent the shape of this distribution.

Therefore, the answer is 2 for IQR.