Question

State whether a cumulative frequency, relative frequency, relative percent, cumulative relative frequency, or cumulative percent is most appropriate for describing the following situations. For cumulative distributions, indicate whether these should be summarized from the top down or from bottom up.

a. The frequency of business with at least 20 employees.

b. The frequency of college students with less than a 3.0 GPA.

c. The percentage of women completing 1, 2, 3, or 4 tasks simultaneously.

d. The proportion of pregnancies performed in public or private hospitals. e. The percentage of alcoholics with more than 2 years of substance abuse.

Answer 1

Solution(a)

The frequency of business with at least 20 employees is bottom up cumulative frequency distribution as we want to calculate greater than rather than less than.

Solution(b)

The frequency of college students with less than a 3GPA - In this also we will use cumulative frequency distribution which would be top down cumulative frequency distribution. As we need to calculate less than so we will start from top to down.

Solution(c)

The % of women completing 1,2,3 or 4 task simultaneously. Here we will use relative percent. Which can be calculated as

(Total no.of women completing task in 1+ no. Of women completing task 2 + no. Of women completing task 3+ no. Of women completing task 4)/ Total no .of women's

So we will use relative percent.

Solution(d)

The proportion of pregnancies performed in public or private hospitals. In this case we will use relative frequency. Which can be calculated as that (no. Of pregnancies performed in public hospitals/no. of pregnancies performed in private hospitals.)

Solution(e)

The percentage of alcoholics with more than 2 years of substance abuse. We will use cumulative percent. Because we required more than 2 years so this is bottom up cumulative percent.