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In statistics, we're confronted with lots of data, and we need to try to make sense of it all.

For example, here is a list of the life expectancy, the number of years that people live on average for 197 different countries and territories around the world. Look at all these numbers. How are we going to make sense out of all of this? One way is to try to summarize it, try to come up with a few numbers, which give us a sense of what the data are all about. As a first step, we can try representing all of these life expectancy values as points on a graph. Well, it still looks kind of like one big jumble of numbers giving all the life expectancies from Afghanistan, all the way to Zimbabwe. Is there any way that we can make better sense of this? Well, for starters, we can rearrange them, so that they're in increasing order from the smallest life expectancy up to the biggest life expectancy. That looks a little better. Now, we can start to see a few things. For example, we can see that the country Sierra Leone has the smallest life expectancy of just 47.8 years. Meanwhile, the country Japan has the largest life expectancy at 83.4 years. All of the other countries have life expectancies which are somewhere in between. We can also learn a little more. For example, we can look for the country, which is halfway along, halfway between the 1st country and the 197th country. That's the 99th country, which in this case, is the country at Egypt. And Egypt has a life expectancy of 73.2 years. So, we say that the median life expectancy is equal to 73.2 years. It means that half the countries have a life expectancy, which is smaller, and half the countries have a life expectancy, which is larger. So now, we know about the minimum and the maximum and the median. But there is more that we can say, too. For example, if we look at the country which is one quarter of the way along in the graph, then that turns out to be the small island nation of Sao Tome and Principe and it has an average life

expectancy of about 64.7 years. This is called the first quartile and we can say that one quarter of the countries have a life expectancy, which is less than 64.7, and the other three quarters have a life expectancy, which is more. We can also go three quarters of the way along the graph. This brings us to the Netherland Antilles island collection, which has an average life expectancy of about 76.7 years. This is called the third quartile. And it tells us that about three quarters of the countries have an average life expectancy, which is less than 76.7 years. And one quarter of them have a life expectancy, which is more. So now, we know the minimum, and the first quartile, and the median, and the third quartile, and the maximum. This is a lot of information, but it's also a lot to keep track of. If we want, we can combine all of these numbers together into a single display, which is called a box plot. The box plot is illustrated here. We can see that it has a big box between the first quartile and the third quartile with a line which indicates the median. It also has extensions on the bottom and the top, which represent the minimum and the maximum values. So, we can see by looking at this box plot, what is the minimum value, the first quartile, the median, the third quartile, and the maximum value. In this way, we can summarize a lot of information about these life expectancies using just five numbers. So now, let's try working out an example together. Suppose, here are the grades from my seminar class last semester. There were nine students and these are the grades that they received. How can we figure out the quartiles, and median and so on, for these grades? Well, for starters, let's rearrange them into increasing order. First, we'll find the smallest number, then the second smallest number, and the third smallest, and so on. That way, we get nine numbers in order. Now, we can see right away that the minimum grade was 68 and the maximum grade was 93. What about the median? Well, there's nine grades, so we want the one which is halfway between the first

one, and the ninth one, and that's the fifth one. So, the median grade is the fifth one, which is equal to 79. What about the first quartile? Well, for that, we want the grade which is one quarter of the way from the first grade up to the ninth grade, which in this case, would be the third grade, which is equal to 74. For the third quartile, we want to go thee quarters of the way along from the first grade to the ninth grade, and that's the seventh grade, which is 88. In that way, we found the minimum. The first quartile, the median, the third quartile, and the maximum value. If we want, we can also make this into a box flat. Again, to draw a box flat, first, you draw a big box which goes from the first quartile up to the third one. Yoou put a line in where the median is and then you put extensions to show the minimum value and the maximum value. In that way, we've made our own box plots. Now, let's try one more example of computing the five number summary. This one will be a little different for a reason that we'll see. Suppose that there are just six student's grades, which are the numbers indicated here. In this case, we can still start by arranging them from the smallest up to the largest, so we can still easily see that the minimum value, in this case is 68, and the maximum value, in this case is 93. But now what about the median? Well, that should be the number which is halfway from the first number up to the sixth number. In this case, that's the 3 and a half number. Well, there is no 3 and a half number, but no problem. We can just take the number which is halfway between the third number and the fourth number, and that gives us a median, which is equal to 81. Now, what about the quartiles? Well, the first quartile should be the number which is one quarter of the way along from the first number up to the sixth number. In this case, that's the 2 and a quarterth number. Well, there's no such number, but we can

take the number which is one quarter of the way from the second number up to the third number, which in this case is equal to 75. So we say the first quartile is 75. Similarly, for the third quartile, we need the number which is three quarters of the the way from the first number to the sixth number, which in this case is the four and three quarterth number. Well, there isn't one, but we can take the number which is three quarters of the way from the fourth number to the fifth number and that equals 88 and a half. So, now we've been able to compute all of the numbers just being a little more careful. Another way to see this is to draw a graph. If we graph all the numbers from smallest to largest, and put a straight line in between them, then we can say right away that the median is the number which is halfway along the graph. The first quartile is the number which is one quarter of the way along the graph. And the third quartile is a number which is three quarters of the way along the graph. So in this way, we see that no matter how many numbers we have, we can still compute their minimum and their first quartile, and their median, and their third quartile, and their maximum.

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