Worked example 1: Five number summary

QUESTION
Draw a box and whisker diagram for the following data set:
1,25 ; 1,5 ; 2,5 ; 2,5 ; 3,1 ; 3,2 ; 4,1 ; 4,25 ; 4,75 ; 4,8 ; 4,95 ; 5,1
SOLUTION
Step 1: Determine the minimum and maximum
Since the data set is already ordered, we can read off the minimum as the rst value
(1,25) and the maximum as the last value (5,1).
Step 2: Determine the quartiles
There are 12 values in the data set. We can use the gure below or the formulae to
determine where the quartiles are located.
1,25 1,5 2,5 2,5 3,1 3,2 4,1 4,25 4,75 4,8 4,95 5,1
0
1
4
1
2
3
4 1
Using the gure above we can see that the median is between the sixth and seventh
values. We can conrm this using the formula:
Location of Q
2
=
1
2
(n 1) + 1
=
1
2
(11) + 1
= 6,5
Therefore, the value of the median is
3,2 + 4,1
2
= 3,65
The rst quartile lies between the third and fourth values. We can conrm this using
the formula:
Location of Q
1
=
1
4
(n 1) + 1
=
1
4
(11) + 1
= 3,75
Therefore, the value of the rst quartile is
Q
1
=
2,5 + 2,5
2
= 2,5
362 9.1. Revision