ACTIVITY SHEET: DESCRIBING DATA GRAPHICALLY

This activity sheet includes exercises to assess students understanding of important concepts
presented in the Describing Data Graphically lesson.

Describing Data Graphically

The data for these exercises are in the Minitab file DescribingDataGraphically_Activity.mtw.

Exercise 1
The following table shows the film lengths (in minutes) of a sample of videotape versions of n =
22 films directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Films are listed in alphabetical order. The data are in the
Minitab columns Hitchcock Movies and Film Lengths (min).
Film

Lengths (min)

Film

Lengths (min)

The Birds

119

Psycho

108

Dial M for Murder

105

Rear Window

113

Family Plot

120

Rebecca

132

Foreign Correspondent

120

Rope

81

Frenzy

116

Shadow of a Doubt

108

I Confess

108

Spellbound

111

The Man Who Knew Too Much

120

Strangers on a Train

101

Marnie

130

To Catch a Thief

103

North by Northwest

136

Topaz

126

Notorious

103

Under Capricorn

117

The Paradise Cane

116

Vertigo

128

(a) Construct a histogram of this data in Minitab.

Minitab 17
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Choose Graph > Histogram.

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Choose Simple, then click OK.

Under Graph variables, enter Film Lengths (min).
Click OK.

Minitab Express
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Open the histogram dialog box.

Mac: Graphs > Histogram > Simple
PC: GRAPHS > Histogram > Simple
In Variables, enter Film Lengths (min).
Click OK.

(b) Change the histogram bins to cutpoints (boundary values), instead of midpoints. In the
histogram for part (a), Minitab has a midpoint labelled in each bin. Using cutpoints may be
preferred since the bin locations are not printed directly on the graph when using midpoints.
Minitab 17
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Double-click the histogram bins.

Click the Binning tab.
Under Interval Type, choose Cutpoint.
Click OK.

Minitab Express
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Click the graph to select it.

Click the plus sign to open the graph elements menu.
Click the arrow next to Binning.
Choose Cutpoint. Select 8 for Number of Bins.
Click OK.

(c) Add the following enhancements to the histogram from part (b).
1. Add a footnote that the histogram bins contain their left endpoints. For example, a bin from
136 to 144 contains film lengths such that 136 film lengths < 144. A footnote is helpful in
making notes about your output for easy interpretation.
Minitab 17
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Right-click anywhere inside the graph.

Choose Add > Footnote.
Enter footnote text, such as Bins contain their left endpoints.
Click OK.

Minitab Express
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Click the graph to select it.

Click the plus sign to open the graph elements menu.
Select Footnote.
Select the graph, then click the footnote to edit it.
Enter footnote text, such as Bins contain their left endpoints.
Press Enter.

2. Include a more descriptive title with the histogram, such as Histogram of a Sample of
Hitchcock Film Lengths (min).
Minitab 17
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Double-click the title.

In the Edit Title dialog under Text, enter a new title.
Click OK.

Minitab Express
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Select the graph, then click the title to edit it.

Enter a new title.
Press Enter.

(d) Which film appears to be an outlier with respect to film length?

(e) Construct a stem-and-leaf plot of the Film Lengths (min) data in Minitab. Let Minitab
choose the increment value.
Minitab 17
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Choose Graph > Stem-and-Leaf.

In Graph variables, enter Film Lengths (min).
Click OK.

Minitab Express
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Open the stem-and-leaf-plot dialog box.

Mac: Graphs > Stem-and-Leaf Plot
PC: GRAPHS > Stem-and-Leaf Plot
In Variable, enter Film Lengths (min).
Click OK.

(f) Use your plot in part (e). Ignore the first column for now [1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 8, 10, (4), 8, 5, 3, 1], and
interpret row 6. What are the lengths of these Hitchcock films?
As an example, lets ignore the first column and interpret row 5, which should contain the
following: 10 | 133. These results indicate that the sample data contain Hitchcock film lengths of
101, 103, and 103 minutes, respectively.
(g) What is the longest film length from this sample of Hitchcock films?
(h) Are there any Hitchcock films in this sample that have lengths between 85 and 100 minutes?
(i) Now lets use the first column, or the count column, of the stem-and-leaf plot for Hitchcock
film lengths. How many of the sample Hitchcock films have lengths less than 110 minutes?
(j) What is the mode or modes of the sample of Hitchcock film lengths?
(k) This is a personal preference question. Which graph do you prefer for gathering information
about the length of Hitchcock filmsthe histogram or stem-and-leaf plot? Briefly state why.

Exercise 2
Below are stem-and-leaf plots of n = 40 Statistics Exam 1 scores. One plot uses an increment of
10 and the other uses an increment of 5, where the increment indicates the difference in value
between stems.

What does the second stem-and-leaf plot (with an increment of 5) reveal about the data that is
not visibly apparent in the first stem-and-leaf plot (with an increment of 10)?

Exercise 3
Below is a stem-and-leaf plot of the NBA teams payroll salaries for the 2013-14 season, in
millions of dollars.

(a) How many teams had salaries of at least 70 million dollars?

(b) What is the median team salary for the 30 NBA teams?

Exercise 4
The following data are commute times (in minutes) from your professors home to work for 25
consecutive work days. The data are in the Minitab column Commute Times.

(a) Construct a histogram in Minitab of your professors commute times. Refer to Exercise 1 for
instructions on constructing a histogram in Minitab.
Make sure your histogram includes the following:

Cutpoints instead of midpoints

Appropriate title

Appropriate time units identified in the plot

Footnote explaining which endpoint is contained in the histogram bins

(b) The 21st commute time, 37.4 minutes, reflects a day when your professor left home without
his laptop computer and had to turn around to retrieve it. Remove this outlier from the data set
and reconstruct the histogram.
Minitab 17
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In the Commute Times column, click on row 21. Press the Delete key to convert the
data point to an asterisk.
Right-click anywhere inside the histogram and select Update Graph Automatically.

Minitab Express
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In the Commute Times column, click on row 21. Press the Delete key to convert the
data point to an asterisk.
Select Make Similar located above the Output Pane.
Click OK.

(c) How many days did your professors commute time fall between 18 minutes (inclusive) and
18.5 minutes (exclusive); i.e. 18 commute time < 18.5? This can be found by hovering over the
appropriate bin(s) in your histogram. Recall that Minitab includes its left endpoints in each bin
frequency count.

Exercise 5
Below is a sample of the total times (in minutes) that you spent reading online news on a given
day during the past two months. The data are in the Minitab column News Reading Times.

(a) Construct a histogram of this data using cutpoints. Label your axes (include time units) and
make sure the title is appropriate. Also, the reader should be told how the histogram bins were
constructed.
(b) What type of skewness, if any, does this data display?

(c) A transformation of data values by some mathematical function, such as or 1/x, can
often yield a set of data values with nicer statistical properties than the original data, such as
symmetry or a bell-shape.
Calculate 1/ for each data value and put the new transformed data values in a new column in
Minitab.
Minitab 17
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Choose Calc > Calculator.

In Store result in variable, type C10 or Transformed Data to store the transformed
data in an empty column.
In the Expression box, enter 1/SQRT(News Reading Times).
Click OK.

Minitab Express
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Open the formula dialog box.

Mac: Data > Formula
PC: DATA > Formula
In the Expression box, enter 1/SQRT(News Reading Times).
Click OK.
The column of data in which your expression resides will be named Expression. Doubleclick this name cell to change the name of your column if desired.

You will notice the transformed data begins with the following values:

(d) Construct a histogram of the transformed data using cutpoints. As always, label your axes
(include time units) and make sure the title is appropriate, which includes referring to the
transformation applied to the data. Also, the reader should be told how the histogram bins were
constructed.
(e) What is the effect of the transformation on the data?