Creating box plots 2

The  exercise appears under the 6th grade (U.S.) Math Mission. This exercise increases understanding and ability to work with boxplots and the five number summary.

Types of Problems
There are two types of problems in this exercise:


 * 1) Find the boxplot that represents the data: This problem presents a set of data and several boxplots. The student is asked to determine which boxplots accurately represents the data.Cbp2-1.png
 * 2) Find the data that would make the boxplot pictured: This problem presents a boxplot and several sets of data. The student is asked to determine which set of data would make the boxplot that is drawn.Cbp2-2.png

Strategies
Knowledge of statistical vocabulary and the ability to do basic statistical calculations are encouraged to ensure success on this exercise.
 * 1) The boxplot is created from the five-number summary of a set of data.
 * 2) The five number summary consists of, in order, the minimum, the first quartile, the median, the third quartile and the maximum.
 * 3) The quartiles are the medians of the top and bottom halves of the data.
 * 4) A boxplot is sometimes also called a box-whiskers plot because of the resemblance to a cat.

Real-life Applications

 * 1) Data and statistics appear in news reports and in the media every day.
 * 2) Many of the problems in this exercise could be viewed as real-life applications.
 * 3) Statistics can be seen more frequently than calculus in every day life.
 * 4) A boxplot is useful for dividing data into manageable quarters.