Question

Which of the following operations is true regarding relative frequency distributions? Multiple choice question. No two classes can have the same relative frequency. The relative frequency is found by dividing the class frequencies by the total number of observations. The sum of the relative frequencies must be less than 1. The sum of the relative frequencies is equal to the number of observations.

Answer 1

The relative frequency is found by dividing the class frequencies by the total number of observations

Explanation:

Relative frequency measures how often a value appears relative to the sum of the total values.

An example of how relative frequency is calculated

Here are the scores and frequency of students in a maths test

Scores (classes) Frequency Relative frequency

0 - 20 10 10 / 50 = 0.2

21 - 40 15 15 / 50 = 0.3

41 - 60 10 10 / 50 = 0.2

61 - 80 5 5 / 50 = 0.1

81 - 100 10 10 / 50 = 0.2

50 1

From the above example, it can be seen that :

1. two or more classes can have the same relative frequency
2. The relative frequency is found by dividing the class frequencies by the total number of observations.
3. The sum of the relative frequencies must be equal to one
4. The sum of the frequencies and not the relative frequencies is equal to the number of observations.