Lightning Deaths Listed below are the numbers of deaths from l...

Question

Lightning Deaths Listed below are the numbers of deaths from lightning strikes in the United States each year for a sequence of recent and consecutive years. Find the values of the indicated statistics.

46 51 44 51 43 32 38 48 45 27 34 29 26 28 23 26 28 40 16 20

f. What important feature of the data is not revealed from an examination of the statistics, and what tool would be helpful in revealing it? What does a quick examination of the data reveal?

Accepted Answer

All right. Hello, everyone. So this question says the data below represents the number of reported shark attacks worldwide per year over a sequence of recent consecutive years. Analyze the data to answer the following questions. And here we have a list of the number of reported shark attacks per year, which in this case, ranges from 30 to 80. Now the question has 3 parts to it. Part one is asking what significant aspect of the data is not captured by the statistical calculations alone. Part two is asking what tool or method would be useful in identifying this aspect. And part 3 is asking what observations can be made from a quick visual inspection of data. So, for this question, I actually want to go ahead and start with part 3, since that involves a visual inspection of the data provided. Now, as mentioned before when I was introducing the question, note the range of data values in this set. Specifically, we have numbers as low as 30 and as high as 80. So here we can see that the number of shark attacks varies significantly from one year to the next. And in addition, there's no consistent upward or downward trend. So for part 3 of the question. What we can see looking at the data at face value, is variability. There's a lot of variability in the number of shark attacks per year. So now let's go back to part one. That is what significant aspect of the data is not captured by statistical calculations alone. Now, recall that statistical calculations referred to the mean. The median And standard deviation or SD for short. Recall that these calculations provide more so a summary of the data, right? But what they do not do is reveal trends, patterns, or fluctuations over time. And so there lies the answer to part one. Right, because the key word here is that calculations like the mean, median, and standard deviation do not discuss trends or fluctuations of the data. So for part two, how would you clarify this, right? How would you identify this aspect that's missing from the data analysis described? Well, here, the key word here is time, right? If the goal is to examine trends of shark attacks over a certain period of time. Then here, what you would want is a time series. Or a line plot. And now we have the answers for parts 12, and 3. And the correct answer overall is option A in the multiple choice. Because for part one, statistical measures do not reveal trends or fluctuations. For part two, a time series plot or line graph would be useful. And for part 3, the data shows variability in the number of attacks per year. And there you have it. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching, and I hope you found this helpful.

Key Concepts

Descriptive Statistics

Data Visualization

Outliers

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