Homework Thurs. 9/29

Today's homework is pg. 44, top of page #4, pg. 33 #1A & 1B, and pg. 42 #5.

We began class with discussing Resistance To Outliers. After finding the mean of 13 and median of 4 for a set of numbers containing an outlier, then modifiying the set of data to one with no outlier, but a symmetric distribution, we found that the mean and median were both 4.

This led to the discovery that:

• the Mean is a measure of center that is sensitive to outliers
  
• the Median a measure of center that is not very sensitive to outliers

For a Java applet illustrating this try: http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap6/6.6/

We tried to find a set of data where the Mean = Median, where the Mean is greater than then Median, and where the Mean is less than the Median

We found that for Mean = Median the distribution of data is Symmetrical,
for the Mean to be greater than the Median, the distribution would be Skewed Right and for the Mean to be less than the Median, the distribution would be Skewed Left.

Later, we found that a back-to-back stem and leaf plot can be used to compare data sets: