Question

The table shows data from a survey about the number of times families eat at restaurants during a week. The families are either from Rome, Italy or New York, New York: Maximum Minimum Q1 Q3 IQR Median Mean σ Rome 16 0 3 13 10 8.5 8 5.4 New York 20 1 4.5 6 1.5 5.5 7.25 5.4 Which of the choices below best describes how to measure the center of this data? Both centers are best described with the mean. Both centers are best described with the median. The Rome data center is best described by the mean. The New York data center is best described by the median. The Rome data center is best described by the median. The New York data center is best described by the mean.

Answer 1

Both centres are best described by the median.

Explanation:

Here is a summary of the statistics from your data.

City Min Q1 IQR Q3 Max Median Mean σ

Rome 0 3.60 8.65 12.25 16 8.25 7.99 5.20

NY 1 2.25 4.69 6.64 20 5.45 6.39 5.91

The box plots below show that both centres are best described by the median.

The outlier in the New York data greatly distorts the mean but does not affect the median. The mean without the outlier would have been 4.45.