Question

Rank the data sets below in order of greatest standard deviation to smallest:

A = {1,2,3,4}
B = {2,2,2,2,}
C = {2,4,6,8}
D = {4,5,6,7}
E = {1,1.5,2,2.5}

Answer 1

The data sets are ranked by estimated standard deviation with set C having the greatest standard deviation, followed by sets A and D, then E, and finally B with the smallest.

Greatest to smallest standard deviation is C, D, E, A, B

Step-by-step explanation:

The task is to rank the data sets in order of greatest standard deviation to smallest. The standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the numbers in a data set are. A quick review of the given data sets:

Set B has no spread since all the values are the same, so its standard deviation is 0. Set A, D, and E have increasing spreads, but to determine their exact standard deviation would require calculation. However, visually sighting set C show it has the largest spread as the difference between numbers is consistent and greater than in the other sets. Therefore, without calculation, we could estimate the ranking as follows, based on the spread of numbers:

This ranking shows set C with the greatest standard deviation followed by sets A and D (not necessarily in that order), then set E, and finally set B with the smallest.