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CBEST Descriptive Statistics — practice questions

Explore 28 free Descriptive Statistics questions in CBEST Mathematics. Open each question or exercise to read its content, reference answers and available explanation.

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Descriptive Statistics questions and exercises with answers

Showing questions 1–28 of 28.

Which measure of the center is found by adding every value and dividing by how many there are?Read the answer and worked solution →Which measure of the center is simply the value that appears most often?Read the answer and worked solution →What name is given to a data set that has two modes?Read the answer and worked solution →How many values does it take to build a box plot?Read the answer and worked solution →The first quartile of an ordered data set is the same as which percentile?Read the answer and worked solution →Which number measures how far the data values sit from their mean?Read the answer and worked solution →A value that does not fit the rest of the data is called what?Read the answer and worked solution →Scoring in the 90th percentile on a test means what?Read the answer and worked solution →The interquartile range measures the spread of which part of the data?Read the answer and worked solution →A data set has a first quartile of 12 and a third quartile of 30. What is the interquartile range?Read the answer and worked solution →A box plot runs from a smallest value of 20 to a largest value of 68. What is the range?Read the answer and worked solution →In a town of 50 people, one earns five million a year and the other 49 each earn thirty thousand. Which measure describes the middle better?Read the answer and worked solution →In a distribution skewed to the right, how do the three measures of center line up?Read the answer and worked solution →In a perfectly symmetrical distribution, what is true of the mean and the median?Read the answer and worked solution →At the same shop, with a mean wait of five minutes and a standard deviation of two, Binh waits one minute. Where does that sit?Read the answer and worked solution →Three students out of a class of 40 scored between 90 and 100 percent. What is the relative frequency for that group?Read the answer and worked solution →In a stem-and-leaf plot, the number 432 splits into which stem and leaf?Read the answer and worked solution →A data set has 97 values arranged in order. Which position holds the median?Read the answer and worked solution →A data set has a first quartile of 20 and a third quartile of 60. A value more than 1.5 interquartile ranges above the third quartile is suspect. What is that cut-off?Read the answer and worked solution →For thirteen house prices the first quartile is 308,750 and the third quartile is 649,000. What is the interquartile range?Read the answer and worked solution →Fourteen values in order are 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 6.8, 7.2, 8, 8.3, 9, 10, 10 and 11.5. What is the median?Read the answer and worked solution →Ten letter counts are 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7 and 8. What is the mean?Read the answer and worked solution →For a set of values the mean is 6.3, the median is 6.5 and the mode is 7. Which way is the distribution skewed?Read the answer and worked solution →A data set has a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of 2. Which value sits 1.5 standard deviations above the mean?Read the answer and worked solution →Twenty-nine ages are listed in order. The position for the 70th percentile is 0.70 multiplied by 30. Which position is that?Read the answer and worked solution →Line up three of one kindRead the answer and worked solution →Fill the gaps in the center ruleRead the answer and worked solution →Key in the summary numbersRead the answer and worked solution →

Worked practice questions

Which measure of the center is found by adding every value and dividing by how many there are?

  1. The median
  2. The mode
  3. The mean
  4. The range
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Correct answer: C. The mean

1. Adding up the values and sharing the total out equally is the everyday idea of an average. 2. In statistics that calculation is called the mean. 3. The median instead splits ordered data into halves, so it is found by sorting rather than adding. _Source: OpenStax High School Statistics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Descriptive Statistics" and Ch 3 "Probability Topics", section 2.5 Measures of the Center of the Data_

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Which measure of the center is simply the value that appears most often?

  1. The mode
  2. The mean
  3. The median
  4. The middle
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Correct answer: A. The mode

1. Some questions ask which value turns up most, not which value is typical on average. 2. The most frequent value in a data set is the mode. 3. The mean and the median can both land on a value that never appears in the data at all. _Source: OpenStax High School Statistics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Descriptive Statistics" and Ch 3 "Probability Topics", section 2.5 Measures of the Center of the Data_

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What name is given to a data set that has two modes?

  1. Skewed
  2. Unimodal
  3. Rounded
  4. Bimodal
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Correct answer: D. Bimodal

1. A data set can have more than one most frequent value if two values tie for the top count. 2. When exactly two values tie in that way, the data set is called bimodal. 3. Unimodal describes a data set with a single mode instead. _Source: OpenStax High School Statistics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Descriptive Statistics" and Ch 3 "Probability Topics", section 2.5 Measures of the Center of the Data_

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