Question

at a fishery, the largest catches in august were of blackfin tuna, sailfish, blue marlin, and king mackerel. the fishery calculated the mean and standard deviation of the weights, in pounds, of each type of fish, as shown in the table. which data set has the smallest spread? blackfin tuna mean = 10.57 sd = 2.61 blue marlin mean = 153.33 sd = 1.97 sailfish mean = 36.85 sd = 4.61 king mackerel mean = 15.57 sd = 6.67

Explanation:

Step1: Recall the measure of spread

Standard - deviation (SD) measures the spread of a data - set. The smaller the standard deviation, the smaller the spread.

Step2: Compare the standard deviations

We have the following standard deviations: Blackfin Tuna: $SD = 2.61$, Sailfish: $SD = 4.61$, Blue Marlin: $SD = 1.97$, King Mackerel: $SD = 6.67$.

Step3: Identify the smallest value

Among $2.61$, $4.61$, $1.97$, and $6.67$, the smallest value is $1.97$ which corresponds to Blue Marlin.

Answer:

Blue Marlin