Interquartile Range and Box Plots Y

The concept of ‘spread’ (variation or dispersion) is very important in statistics.

So far the only way we have encountered measuring it has been to use the range, but this is a very crude
measure. For a more accurate and reliable measure of spread we use the interquartile range.

E.g. 1. Here is the number, in ascending order, of detentions given this week by 15 teachers.
12, 13, 21, 28, 29, 31, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 41, 42, 49, 73.
1st quartile 2nd quartile 3rd quartile
or median
The one in the middle is the median. The other 2 numbers highlighted split the numbers into quarters, and so
are called the first and third quartiles, Q1 and Q3 (the median is Q2). The difference between these values is a
valid measure of dispersion of the data about the average figure.
Therefore, the interquartile range (IQR) is Q3 - Q1. In the example above 41 - 28 = 13.
The interquartile range is not affected by extreme values. It uses only the middle half of the data.
1). Find the median and the
Licensed tointerquartile
North Londonrange of Collegiate
these sets of numbers.
School (Singapore)
a). 3 12 21 15 9 16 18
b). 47 42 60 49 37 40 17
c). 326 360 314 352 400 341 352
d). 19 22 20 22 18 16 15 17 19 16 29
e). 53 51 48 54 52 51 59 53 57 62 55
f). 152 167 159 162 140 157 163 160 155 141 158
g). 87 84 83 79 82 90 73 84 87 78 91 81 79 85 80
h). 37 42 63 97 41 42 47 39 17 40 43 49 43 52 36
i). 6.4 5.9 6.7 6.2 5.8 4.1 6.8 6.5 6.2 5.9 6.4
j). 1.4 2.7 0.2 3.5 4.1 2.3 1.9 2.2 1.6 2.0 2.6 2.2 1.8 2.9 3.0
E.g. 2. Here are the number of points scored in 16 rugby matches, placed in ascending order.
[ 0 12 14 14] [16 19 19 20] [21 24 27 28] [33 39 49 65]
Q1 Q2 Q3
Therefore Q1 =15, Q2 = 20.5, Q3 = 30.5

2). Find the median and the interquartile range of these sets of numbers.
a). 5 16 13 19 21 9 16 11
b). 53 47 62 49 39 64 40 45
c). 87 95 79 103 82 91 80 86
d). 13 27 20 29 15 19 11 24 22 16 29 17
e). 62 51 48 55 56 43 59 48 57 60 47 55
f). 114 134 108 143 125 119 136 122 117 141 128 121
g). 55 47 81 56 67 82 53 49 66 52 69 61 94 62 48 54 61 59 54 65
h). 22 13 45 13 45 33 19 27 23 35 18 32 26 52 41 31 27 22 34 38
i). 8.3 7.2 6.9 7.5 7.8 7.1 8.2 6.8 7.9 8.6 8.1 7.1 6.5 7.2 8.0 6.2
j). 1.4 5.3 2.7 3.9 2.6 0.8 1.6 2.5 1.8 4.2 2.3 3.4 1.9 3.3 2.9 1.5

Box Plot or
Box and Whisker Diagram Lowest value Highest value
Q1 Q2 Q3
3). Use graph paper and draw a box plot for a). - j). in Question 2.
7.6.39. Licensed to North London Collegiate School (Singapore) valid until 16/07/2023 www.10ticks.co.uk