Question

In a study off the size of houses in a certain region, the mean size was found to be 1929.5 square feet with a median size of 1200 square feet. Which value is the more appropriate measure of spread?

	a.	The IQR because the data is symmetric.
	b.	The standard deviation because the data is symmetric.
	c.	The IQR because the data is skewed.
	d.	The standard deviation because the data is skewed.

Answer 1

The answer is:

The data is skewed because the Median(1200) is less than the mean(1929.5)

For skewed data, it is always better to use the IQR rather than the standard deviation. In a skewed distribution, the upper half and the lower half have a different amount of spread, so standard deviation would not be able to describe the data very well. The IQR, on the other hand, will provide a much better picture.

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