SSR201 Basic Statistics January 2024

Percentiles and Measures of Spread

1. A teacher after a quiz to his students that the 15th percentile for the quiz marks was
35%. What does the teacher mean by this statement?
2. The scores for some candidates in a test are
35, 37, 40, 45, 49, 53, 61, 65, 70, 79, 85, 91, 94, 96
a. What will be the percentile for the score 70?
b. What is the 13th percentile and the 87th percentile?
3. The times for a mini marathon race are shown for six students. What percentile is
Kojo’s time in?
Kwame: 83 minutes
Ama: 101 minutes
Esi: 98 minutes
David: 186 minutes
Francis: 76 minutes
Kojo: 105 minutes
4. The table below shows measures of monthly salaries for male and female workers in
Ghana in GHC.
Number of Lowest Lower Upper Highest
Mean Median
Employees Decile Quartile Quartile Decile
MALE 11,048 1691 1397 781 996 2043 2985
FEMALE 7,237 1458 1256 728 905 1798 2430

Using the table, answer the following questions

a. What is the 10th percentile for men? What is the 75th percentile for women?
b. What data in the table would you use to confirm the following statement?
“Low-earning women earn only a little less than low-earning men, but high earning
women earn quite a lot less than high earning men.”
c. Are monthly earnings positively or negatively skewed? Sketch a rough outline of
the shape of the distribution for either males or females.
5. The table below shows total test scores for boys and girls in a community school. Using
the data, calculate the inter-quartile and inter-decile ranges for boys and girls and
interpret the results.
SSR201 Basic Statistics January 2024

Percentiles
5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th
BOYS 321 361 429 497 570 622 652
GIRLS 347 380 443 513 585 638 666

6. The table below shows the number of people who visited a website in a 78 days period.
1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71
174 270 342 385 418 483 521 579
175 278 350 387 424 486 533 580
185 283 356 388 427 494 535 581
214 284 361 393 429 495 542 585
220 288 364 393 434 496 551 587
221 297 368 393 448 499 556 596
223 308 375 394 454 499 561 603
242 313 380 411 464 500 570
242 325 382 411 471 501 576
254 335 385 417 477 509 578

Using the table, answer the following questions

a. What are the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles?
b. What are the top and bottom deciles?
c. What is the range?
d. What is the inter-quartile range?
e. What is the inter-decile difference?
7. The table below shows the heights of a sample of male and female student in a school
in inches
Male Female
65 61
67 66
70 65
63 60
75 67
73 68
60

Using the data calculate

a. The mean height of male and female students in the school
b. The standard deviation for males and females
SSR201 Basic Statistics January 2024

c. What does the mean and standard deviations for male and female students tell you
about their height