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What does a negative value of the skewness measure tell you about a distribution?
AIt has no tail on either of its two sides
BIts left tail is long relative to the right
CIts right tail is long relative to the left
DIt has two modes rather than a single mode
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. Its left tail is long relative to the right
1. Skewness is built from the cubed deviations from the mean, so it keeps its sign.
2. A negative total means the deviations below the mean dominate.
3. That describes data skewed left, where the left tail is long relative to the right.
4. A positive value would instead mark a long right tail, so the two signs must not be swapped.
_Source: OpenStax Introductory Business Statistics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Descriptive Statistics", section 2.6 Skewness and the Mean, Median, and Mode_
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