Chapter 2: Descriptive Statistics Name___________________
1. The following graph represents the results of a survey, conducted in May 2010, in which a
random sample of adult Americans was asked, “Please tell me whether you personally believe
that in general divorce is morally acceptable or morally wrong.”
a) What percent of the respondents believe divorce is morally acceptable?
b) If there were 240 million adult Americans in 2010, how many believe that divorce is morally
wrong?
c) If Gallup claimed that the results of the survey indicate that 8% of adult Americans believe
that divorce is acceptable in certain situations, would you say this statement is descriptive or
inferential? Why?
2. Consider the information in the chart shown next, which is in the USA Today style of graph.
Could the information provided be organized into a pie chart? Why or why not?
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3. A survey of U.S. adults and teens (ages 12–17) was administered by Pew Research April 29–
May 30, 2010, to determine the number of texts sent in a single day.
a) Construct a relative frequency distribution for adults and teens.
b) Construct a side-by-side relative frequency bar graph.
c) Compare the texting habits of adults and teens.
4. The following data represent the land area and highest elevation for each of the seven
continents.
a) Would it make sense to draw a pie chart for land area?
Why?
b) Would it make sense to draw a pie chart for the
highest elevation? Why?
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5. An experiment was conducted in which two fair dice were thrown 100 times. The sum of the
pips showing on the dice was then recorded. The following frequency histogram gives the
results.
a) What was the most frequent outcome of the experiment?
b) What was the least frequent?
c) How many times did we observe a 7?
d) How many more 5’s were observed than 4’s?
e) Determine the percentage of time a 7 was observed.
f) Describe the shape of the distribution.
6. To predict future enrollment, a local school district wants to know the number of children in
the district under the age of 5. Fifty households within the district were sampled, and the head
of household was asked to disclose the number of children under the age of 5 living in the
household. The results of the survey are presented in the following table.
a) Construct a relative frequency distribution
of the data.
b) What percentage of households has
two children under the age of 5?
c) What percentage of households has one or two children under the age of 5?
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7. The following data represent the fall 2009 student headcount enrollments for all public
community colleges in the state of Illinois. Find the following:
a) the number of classes.
b) the class limits.
c) the class width.
d) a frequency histogram.
8. The following data represent the ages of the presidents of the United States (from George
Washington through Barack Obama) on their first days in office. Note: President Cleveland’s age
is listed twice, 47 and 55, because he is historically counted as two different presidents,
numbers 22 and 24, since his terms were not consecutive.
a) construct a stem-and-leaf plot
b) construct a dot plot
c) describe the shape of the distribution.
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