Australian Curriculum Sample Questions CEOWA

Investigation

Year: 8
Topic: Effect of Outliers
(on mean and median)

Prior knowledge: Calculation of mean and median

Strand: Statistics and Probability

Substrand: Data representation and interpretation

Houses for sale in the same suburb (area of Perth) can vary a lot in price.
The Real Estate section of a newspaper or a website (such as
http://www.realestate.com.au) can be used to find the prices of properties for sale in
different suburbs.

Question One

Why do think house in the same area have different prices?

List 4 things that may affect the price of a house, apart from its suburb:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

The price of a typical or average house in a certain suburb is often stated as a way
of comparing the house prices between different suburbs.

There are several mathematical ways that an average can be calculated.

Question Two

(a) Here are the prices of five properties for sale in Como:

$825 000
$1 365 000
$879 000
$629 000
$799 000

(i) Calculate the mean price for these five houses.

(ii) Put the prices in order of size, and then state the median house price.

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

 (iii) Compare your two answers from (a) and (b).

Which average – mean or median – is the most typical price of a house

in Como, based on these 5 houses? Give a reason for your answer

(b) Here are the prices of 5 more houses in Como:

$2 150 000
$1 850 000
$1 699 000
$839 000
$995 000

(i) Calculate the mean price for these different five houses.

(ii) Determine the median house price for these different five houses.

(c) (i) Calculate the mean and median house prices for all 10 houses in Como.
(d) Consider your answers from parts (a), (b) and (c).

Which average(s) do you think represents best the typical price of a house in
Como, the first group of 5 houses, the second group of 5 houses OR the
whole group of 10 houses? Why?

(e) In April 2012, the median house price for Como was $510 000.
Compare this to your previous answers for the median – is it higher or lower?

Question Two

The prices of 10 houses for sale in Spearwood are listed below.

$595 000 $525 000

$579 000 $399 000
$640 000 $449 000
$545 000 $899 000
$485 000 $619 000

(a) Calculate the mean and median house price for Spearwood.
An outlier in a set of data is a number which appears significantly higher or lower
than the other numbers in the list.

(b) Which house price appears to be an outlier for the list of house prices in (a)?

(c) Recalculate the mean and median for the 9 values in part (a), excluding the
outlier.

(d) (i) Which average, the mean or median, was most affected by the removal
of the outlier?

(ii) By considering how the mean and median are calculated, explain your
answer to part (i) above.
(e) The median house price for Spearwood in April 2012 was $425 000.
Compare this to both medians determined in (a) and (c) above.

(f) Why do you think the price of a typical or average house in a certain suburb is
usually quoted as the median price?