To convert a frequency into a proportion or relative frequency, divide the frequency for each class by the total of the

frequencies. The sum of the relative frequencies will always be one.

Example 1:
For 75 employees of a large department store, the following distribution for years of service was obtained. Construct a
histogram, frequency polygon, and ogive for the data. A maority of the employees have wor!ed for how many years or
less"
Class limits Frequency
#.5 $#
%.#& $5
##.#5 #5
#%.$& &
$#.$5 '
$%.(& %
Distribution Shapes
)istributions are most often not perfectly shaped, so it is necessary not to have an e*act shape but rather to identify an
overall pattern.
A bell-shaped distribution has a single pea! and tapers off at either end. +t is appro*imately symmetric, i.e., it is
roughly the same on both sides of a line running through the center.
A uniform distribution is basically flat or rectangular.
A J-shaped distribution has a few data values on the left side and increases as one moves to the right.
A reverse J-shaped distribution is the opposite of a -.shaped distribution.
/hen the pea! of the distribution is to the left and the data values taper off to the right, a distribution is said to be
riht-s!e"ed#
/hen the data values are clustered to the right and taper off to the left, a distribution is said to be left-s!e"ed#
)istributions with one pea! are said to be unimodal.
/hen a distribution has two pea!s of the same height, it is said to be bimodal.
A $-shaped distribution has pea!s on both the left and right and then decreases as one moves toward the center.
Chp.$ 0age #