CHAPTE

13
Statistics

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Section13.3 Measures of Relative
Position

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

z-Scores

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z-Scores
Consider an Internet site that offers movie downloads.
Based on data kept by the site, an estimate of the mean
time to download a certain movie is 12 min, with a standard
deviation of 4 min.

When you download this movie, the download takes

20 min, which you think is an unusually long time for the
download.

On the other hand, when your friend downloads the movie,

the download takes only 6 min, and your friend is
pleasantly surprised at how quickly she receives the movie.
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z-Scores
In each case, a data value far from the mean is unexpected.

The graph below shows the download times for this movie
using two different measures: the number of minutes a
download time is from the mean and the number of
standard deviations the download time is from the mean.

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z-Scores
The number of standard deviations between a data value
and the mean is known as the data value’s z-score or
standard score.

In the next example, we use a student’s z-scores for two

tests to determine how well the student did on each test in
comparison to the other students. 6
Example 1 – Compare z-Scores
Raul has taken two tests in his chemistry class. He scored
72 on the first test, for which the mean of all scores was 65
and the standard deviation was 8. He received a 60 on a
second test, for which the mean of all scores was 45 and
the standard deviation was 12. In comparison to the other
students, did Raul do better on the first test or the second
test?

Solution:
Find the z-score for each test.

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Example 1 – Solution cont’d

Raul scored 0.875 standard deviation above the mean on

the first test and 1.25 standard deviations above the mean
on the second test.

These z-scores indicate that, in comparison to his

classmates, Raul scored better on the second test than
he did on the first test.

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Percentiles

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Percentiles
Most standardized examinations provide scores in terms of
percentiles, which are defined as follows:

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Example 3 – Using Percentiles
In a recent year, the median annual salary for a physical
therapist was $74,480. If the 90th percentile for the annual
salary of a physical therapist was $105,900, find the
percent of physical therapists whose annual salary was

a. more than $74,480.

b. less than $105,900.

c. between $74,480 and $105,900.

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Example 3 – Solution
a. By definition, the median is the 50th percentile.
Therefore, 50% of the physical therapists earned more
than $74,480 per year.

b. Because $105,900 is the 90th percentile, 90% of all

physical therapists made less than $105,900.

c. From parts a and b, 90% – 50% = 40% of the physical

therapists earned between $74,480 and $105,900.

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Percentiles
The following formula can be used to find the percentile
that corresponds to a particular data value in a set of data.

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Example 4 – Find a Percentile
On a reading examination given to 900 students, Elaine’s
score of 602 was higher than the scores of 576 of the
students who took the examination. What is the percentile
for Elaine’s score?

Solution:

Elaine’s score of 602 places her at the 64th percentile.

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Quartiles

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Quartiles
The three numbers Q1, Q2, and Q3 that partition a ranked
data set into four (approximately) equal groups are called
the quartiles of the data.

For instance, for the data set below, the values

Q1 = 11, Q2 = 29, and Q3 = 104 are the quartiles of the
data.

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Quartiles
The quartile Q1 is called the first quartile. The quartile Q2 is
called the second quartile. It is the median of the data. The
quartile Q3 is called the third quartile.

The following method of finding quartiles makes use of

medians.

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Example 5 – Use Medians to Find the Quartiles of a Data Set

The following table lists the calories per 100 milliliters of 25

popular sodas. Find the quartiles for the data.

Solution:
Step 1: Rank the data as shown in the following table.

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Example 5 – Solution cont’d

Step 2: The median of these 25 data values has a rank of

13. Thus the median is 43. The second quartile Q2
is the median of the data, so Q2 = 43.

Step 3: There are 12 data values less than the median and

12 data values greater than the median. The first

quartile is the median of the data values less than
the median. Thus Q1 is the mean of the data
values with ranks of 6 and 7.

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Example 5 – Solution cont’d

The third quartile is the median of the data values

greater than the median. Thus Q3 is the mean of
the data values with ranks of 19 and 20.

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Box-and-Whisker Plots

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Box-and-Whisker Plots
A box-and-whisker plot (sometimes called a box plot) is
often used to provide a visual summary of a set of data.

A box-and-whisker plot shows the median, the first and

third quartiles, and the minimum and maximum values of a
data set. See the figure below.

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Box-and-Whisker Plots

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Example 6 – Construct a Box-and-Whisker Plot

Construct a box-and-whisker plot for the data set in

Example 5.

Solution:
For the data set in Example 5, we determined that
Q1 = 39, Q2 = 43, and Q3 = 51.5.

The minimum data value for the data set is 26, and the
maximum data value is 73. Thus the box-and-whisker plot
is shown below.

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