MODULE 8 — CENTRAL TENDENCY & DISPERSION
18 Questions
Q1.
Explain the difference between mean, median, and mode.
How does each measure help managers interpret business data
differently?
Q2.
Define dispersion.
Why is it important to study dispersion along with central tendency in
decision-making?
Q3.
What are the limitations of mean as a measure of central tendency in
skewed distributions?
Q4.
Explain the meaning of range, mean deviation, variance, and
standard deviation in simple terms with one business-related example
for each.
Q5.
Why is standard deviation considered a more reliable measure of
dispersion than range?
Q6.
A company recorded the following weekly sales (units):
122, 135, 128, 150, 140
Calculate the mean and comment on the average performance.
Q7.
A startup tracks daily website visits:
280, 310, 270, 295, 315, 300, 330
(a) Arrange in ascending order
(b) Find the median
Q8.
The number of complaints received by a service center in 7 days is:
5, 8, 5, 11, 9, 8, 5
Find the mode.
How can the manager use this information?
Q9.
A clothing store records monthly footfall in five months:
2200, 2500, 1900, 2600, 2400
Compute the range and interpret the variability.
Q10.
Given a dataset of salaries (₹ in thousands):
28, 34, 30, 26, 42, 36
Find the mean deviation about mean.
Q11.
The age distribution (years) of employees:
25, 27, 30, 24, 29, 33, 26
Find the variance and standard deviation.
Q12.
A factory’s daily output for 6 days:
280, 300, 320, 310, 330, 290
Calculate the mean and standard deviation.
Comment on output stability.
Q13.
The following data shows weekly expenses of students (₹):
520, 610, 580, 560, 640, 600
Compute:
(a) Mean
(b) Variance
Q14.
A shop records the number of customers on 8 consecutive days:
92, 100, 110, 95, 120, 98, 105, 118
Calculate the quartile deviation (QD).
Q15.
Marks scored by 10 students are:
45, 52, 60, 68, 55, 72, 49, 58, 61, 65
Find the median and interquartile range (IQR).
Q16.
A manager wants to identify variability in employee performance:
Scores: 78, 84, 75, 90, 82
Compute standard deviation and explain the consistency of performance.
Q17.
Two branches of a café show the following data (monthly revenue in ₹):
Branch X: Mean = ₹4,20,000; SD = ₹14,000
Branch Y: Mean = ₹4,10,000; SD = ₹28,000
Which branch shows more consistency in performance? Why?
Q18.
Why does a business manager need both mean and standard deviation to
interpret demand patterns for inventory planning?
✅ CASE STUDY 1 (QT STYLE)
Store Performance Analysis
A departmental store tracks the weekly sales (in ₹ thousands) of one
product for 7 weeks:
48, 55, 52, 60, 58, 53, 62
Answer the following:
a) Arrange the data in ascending order.
b) Calculate the mean and median.
c) Compute the range.
d) Calculate the standard deviation.
e) Comment on whether weekly sales show high or low variability.
✅ CASE STUDY 2 (QT STYLE)
Employee Productivity Evaluation
A company tracks the number of units manufactured per employee over 6
days:
120, 135, 150, 140, 155, 130
Using the above data:
a) Calculate the mean output.
b) Find the variance and standard deviation.
c) Determine whether employee performance is consistent.
d) If the manager wants to reward stability, should employees be judged
based on mean or SD? Explain.
e) If output on Day 7 is expected to be within ±1 SD of the mean,
estimate the likely range.