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Chapter 2: Measures of Central Tendency
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Figure 2-30:
Symmetrical Unimodal data set
In Chapter 1, we observed different shapes from certain graphs which were
discussed. Recall the shape of the histogram and the frequency polygon
gave us an idea about the shape of the distribution of the population from
which the sample was obtained. In the next section, we will discuss the
different general types of shapes for a distribution.
Section Review
2-5 Shapes of Distributions
Here we will discuss the three general shapes into which a distribution can
be categorized. The three most important shapes for any distribution are
positively skewed, symmetrical, and negatively skewed.
Positively Skewed Distribution
In a positively skewed distribution, most of the data values fall to the left of
the mean, and the “tail” of the distribution is to the right. In addition, the
mean is to the right of the median and the mode is to the left of the median.
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