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Two shops both average a five minute wait. Shop A has a standard deviation of two minutes and shop B has four. Which shop has the more varied waits?
AShop A, the smaller figure
BShop B, the larger figure
CBoth are equally varied
DNeither shop varies at all
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. Shop B, the larger figure
1. The two averages are equal, so the averages cannot separate the shops.
2. The standard deviation reports how spread out the waits are around that average.
3. Shop B has the higher standard deviation, so its waits are more spread out.
4. Shop A has the smaller figure, so its waits cluster more closely around five minutes.
_Source: OpenStax High School Statistics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Descriptive Statistics" and Ch 3 "Probability Topics", section 2.7 Measures of the Spread of the Data_
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