STATISTICS – MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
Question 1
Which of the following examples is NOT an attribute?
a) Age of a person.
b) Gender of a person: male or female.
c) Choice on a test item: true or false.
d) Marital status of a person: single, married, divorced, other.
Question 2
Which of the following statements is FALSE?
a) The relative frequency (fi) is the absolute frequency in each class divided by the total
number of observations.
b) The absolute frequency (ni) is the number of times that a certain value appears in a
statistical study.
c) The sum of the absolute frequencies is always equal to 1.
d) The accumulated absolute frequency is the number of observations smaller than or
equal to a certain value in an ordered list of events.
Question 3
Which of the following is NOT a measure of central tendency?
a) Mean.
b) Median.
c) Variance.
d) Mode.
Question 4
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the mean?
a) It can be computed with quantitative and qualitative variables.
b) It is affected by extreme values (or outliers).
c) It minimizes the sum of squared deviations.
d) It is always affected by changes of scale and changes in origin.
Question 5
Given the following data set [8, 3, 6, 1, 4], what is the value of the median?
a) 2
b) 4
c) 5
d) 6
Question 6
Which of the following statements is FALSE?
a) The median of a variable is the value that lies in the middle of the data when arranged
in ascending order.
b) The mean of a variable is computed by adding all the values of the variable in the
data set and dividing by the number of observations.
c) The sum of the relative frequencies is always equal to 1.
d) The mode is the less frequent observation of the variable that occurs in the data set.
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Question 7
The heights in centimeters of 5 students are: 165, 175, 176, 159 and 170. The sample median
and sample mean are respectively:
a) 170, 170
b) 169, 170
c) 176, 169
d) 170, 169
Question 8
As a general rule, the _________ is the best measure of central tendency because it is more
precise.
a) Mean.
b) Median.
c) Mode.
d) Variance.
Question 9
The variance of a sample of 576 observations equals 144. The standard deviation of the
sample equals:
a) 12.
b) 24.
c) 576.
d) 4.
Question 10
The difference between the largest and the smallest data values is called the:
a) Variance.
b) Range
c) Standard deviation.
d) Median.
Question 11
Which of the following statements is TRUE?
a) The population variance of a variable is the square root of the sum of squared
deviations about the population mean divided by the total number of observations in
the population.
b) The sample standard deviation is the square root of the sum of squared deviations
about the sample mean divided by n–1, where n is the sample size.
c) The variance of a variable is the square root of the standard deviation.
d) The range of a variable is the difference between the smallest and the largest data
value.
Question 12
If the variance of a data set is correctly computed with the formula n–1 in the denominator,
which of the following is TRUE?
a) The data set is a sample.
b) The data set is a population.
c) The data set could be either a sample or a population.
d) None of the above answers is correct.
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Question 13
Which of the following statements is TRUE?
a) If the Fisher’s Asymmetry Coefficient (g1) is equal to zero, then the distribution is
skewed to the right.
b) If the Fisher’s Asymmetry Coefficient (g1) is positive, then the distribution is skewed
to the right.
c) If the Fisher’s Asymmetry Coefficient (g1) is negative, then the distribution is skewed
to the right.
d) None of the above answers is correct.
Question 14
If the covariance between X and Y takes a positive value, then:
a) The higher the value of X, the lower the value of Y.
b) The lower the value of X, the higher the value of Y.
c) There is no relationship between these variables.
d) The lower the value of X, the lower the value of Y.
Question 15
Which of the following statements regarding covariance is FALSE?
a) It measures the degree of dependency between two variables.
b) It can take positive, negative or zero values.
c) If two variables are independent, then it will take zero value.
d) Because it involves squared values, it must always be a positive number (or zero).
Question 16
In statistics, kurtosis refers to:
a) the relative steepness or shallowness of a distribution compared to the normal
distribution.
b) the relative steepness or shallowness of a distribution compared to the rest of the data.
c) the number of steps in a histogram.
d) the narrowness of the range of scores.
Question 17
When a distribution has a positive skew, what is the relationship between the mean, the
median and the mode?
a) Mean = Median = Mode
b) Mean < Median < Mode
c) Mean > Median > Mode
d) The left tail is longer and the mass of the distribution is concentrated on the right of the
figure, which indicates that mean is lower than mode and median.
Question 18
Which of the following statements is TRUE?
a) If the kurtosis coefficient (g2) is positive, then the distribution is mesokurtic.
b) If the kurtosis coefficient (g2) is equal to zero, then the distribution is platykurtic.
c) If the kurtosis coefficient (g2) is negative, then the distribution is leptokurtic.
d) All the above answers are false.
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Question 19
The function that describes the probability that a variable takes on a value equal to a number x
is called:
a) Discrete probability function.
b) Continuous probability function.
c) Probability mass function.
d) Distribution function.
Question 20
Which of the following statements is FALSE?
a) An event is any collection of outcomes from a probability experiment
b) The complement of the event E, denoted Ec, is all outcomes in the sample space S that
are not included in this event.
c) The probability of any event E, P(E), must be greater than or equal to 0 and less than or
equal to 1.
d) The sum of the probabilities of all outcomes must be greater than 1.
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ANSWER KEY FOR MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. a)
2. c)
3. c)
4. a)
5. b)
6. d)
7. d)
8. a)
9. a)
10. b)
11. b)
12. a)
13. b)
14. d)
15. d)
16. a)
17. c)
18. d)
19. c)
20. d)
