Question

a) what measures would you use to describe the center and spread of these data? justify your answer.

1. when drilling for oil wells, researchers have to take into account how much oil each well will eventually produce before deciding if they should drill in a specific location. in the table below, there are the total amounts of oil recovered from 38 wells in the michigan basin, in thousands of barrels.

oil barrels recovered (in thousands)
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
f) remove the value of 285mg from the southside cholesterols data - set. use your calculator to find the following values again:
southside
mean
min
q1
med
q3
max
std. dev
what values changed the most? what values changed the least?

Explanation:

Step1: Identify measures for center and spread

For center, mean and median are common. Mean is the sum of all data - points divided by the number of data - points. Median is the middle value when data is ordered. For spread, range (Max - Min), inter - quartile range (IQR = Q3 - Q1), and standard deviation are common.

Step2: Consider the data characteristics

The data has outliers (e.g., 157, 98, 92). The mean is affected by outliers, while the median is not. The range and standard deviation are affected by outliers, and the IQR is more robust to outliers.

Step3: Choose the measures

To describe the center, the median is a better choice as it is not influenced by outliers. To describe the spread, the inter - quartile range (IQR) is a better choice as it is also not affected by outliers.

Answer:

To describe the center, the median. To describe the spread, the inter - quartile range (IQR). Justification: The data has outliers, and the median and IQR are more robust to outliers compared to the mean, range, and standard deviation.