Quartiles and

Cumulative Frequency

Last modified: 17th October 2020 CE

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Starter
Here are the salaries of 11 people working at a firm.
(a) How could we work out the ‘average’ salary. What is the
disadvantage/advantage of each approach?
(b) How could we numerically describe how ‘spread out’ the
salaries are? How useful is the value you have?

Salary (in £1000s):

24 24 25 26 26 29 30 32 44 89 192
Starter
Here are the salaries of 11 people working at a firm.
(a) How could we work out the ‘average’ salary. What is the
disadvantage/advantage of each approach?
(b) How could we numerically describe how ‘spread out’ the
salaries are? How useful is the value you have?

Salary (in £1000s):

24 24 25 26 26 29 30 32 44 89 192

a Mean Median
 𝟐𝟒+𝟐𝟒+𝟐𝟓+ …+𝟏𝟗𝟐   (the middle value!)
=£ 𝟒𝟗 ,𝟏𝟖𝟐
?𝟏𝟏Calculation ? Calculation
Advantage: More reflective ?
of a typical worker.
Advantage:
?
This average takes all the values Disadvantage: Ignores all values other than the
into account.
Disadvantage: This average is not very representative
centre one. ?
of the ‘typical’ worker – only two of
?
the workers have a salary higher
than this average!
Starter
Here are the salaries of 11 people working at a firm.
(a) How could we work out the ‘average’ salary. What is the
disadvantage/advantage of each approach?
(b) How could we numerically describe how ‘spread out’ the
salaries are? How useful is the value you have?

Salary (in £1000s):

24 24 25 26 26 29 30 32 44 89 192

b  
One good measure of spread is the ‘width’ of the data, i.e. the difference
between the smallest and largest value – this is known as the range.

The more spread out the data, the greater the range.

£168,000 does not effectively represent how spread out the data is: most the
employee’s salaries don’t vary by very much…
Starter
Here are the salaries of 11 people working at a firm.
(a) How could we work out the ‘average’ salary. What is the
disadvantage/advantage of each approach?
(b) How could we numerically describe how ‘spread out’ the
salaries are? How useful is the value you have?

Salary (in £1000s):

24 24 25 26 26 29 30 32 44 89 192

b Another measure of spread we will look at shortly is the interquartile range,

which gives the ‘width’ of the middle 50% of the data, in this case £19,000.

i.e. “The middle 50% of salaries vary by £19,000”.

The interquartile range therefore allows us to ignore ‘extreme values’, so is a

very useful measure.
Measures of Location
Suppose that we line up everyone in the school in order of height.

50%

The height of the person We already know that the The upper quartile is the
25% along the line is median would be the height of the person 75%
known as the: middle person’s height. along the data.
?
lower quartile
50% of the people in the
school would have a
height less than them.

The median is known as a measure of location, because

it gives us the value at a certain fraction/percentage of
the way along the data, in this case halfway.
Test Your Understanding so far…

?
50% of the data has a value more than the median.

75% of the data has a value less than the upper ?

quartile.

25% of the data has a value more than the upper ?

quartile.

?
75% of the data has a value more than the lower quartile.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

LQ Median UQ
 Determining quartiles from listed data
If there are two middle items, the median is the value
halfway between the two.

Here are the ages of 10 people at Pablo’s party. Choose the correct value.
To get LQ: If
there’s an even
number of
items, simply
12, 13, 14, 14, 15, 16, 16, 17, 19, 24
find median of
the first half of
the data.
(Click to vote)
Median: 15 15.5 16

LQ: 13 13.5 14

UQ: 17 18 19

Interquartile As mentioned earlier, the interquartile range 0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Range: 17 −14=3
 
?
is how spread out the middle 50% of the data
is. The middle 50% goes from the 25% point
to the 75% point, so we find the difference
middle 50%

between the lower and upper quartiles.

Quickfire Quartiles
Rule for lower quartile:
•Even num of items: find median of bottom half.
•Odd num of items: throw away middle item, find median of remaining bottom half.

LQ Median UQ
1, 2, 3 1? 2? 3?

1, 2, 3, 4 ?
1.5 ?
2.5 ?
3.5

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 1.5
? 3? 4.5
?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 2? 3.5
? 5?
What if there’s lots of items?
There are 31 items, in order of value. What items should we use for the median and
lower/upper quartiles?

0 1 1 2 4 5 5 6 7 8 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 19 19
29 31 31 37 38 39 39 40 40 41 43 44

LQ Use the 8?th item 6?

Median Use the 16? th item 17

?

UQ Use the 24? th item 38

?

Fro
  Tip: +1 to the number of items. Then find and of this number to get the
position of the LQ, median and UQ respectively.
This trick only works if the number of items if one less than a multiple of 4.
What item numbers should you use?

Num items LQ Median UQ

15 4th? 8?th 12? th

23 6th? 12?th 18? th

39 10?th 20? th 30? th

47 12?th 24? th 36? th

Test Your Understanding

1 Here are the ages of 7 students:

7 9 10 12 14 16 17
(a) Determine the lower quartile. 9 ?
(b) Determine the interquartile range. 16 – 9 = 7 ?

2 [Edexcel IGCSE Jan2016-3H Q13]

Here are the marks that James scored in eleven maths tests.
   16    12    19    18    17    13    13    20    11    19    17

(a) Determine the interquartile range of these marks. Answer:

? 6
Sunil did the same eleven maths tests.
The median mark Sunil scored in his tests is 17.
The interquartile range is 8.
(b) Which one of Sunil or James has the more consistent marks?
James because he had a lower interquartile range.
?
Median/quartiles from a frequency table
Age (years) Frequency Time taken (s) Freq
8 4
7 9
1 2
We can use the
4 same “quarters 11
of 1 more than
7 the total 13
frequency” trick.

Total frequency: 27 ?  
Total frequency: 39 ?
Position of item for median: 14th? Position of item for median: 20th ?
Position of item for LQ: 7th ? Position of item for LQ: 10th ?
Position of item for UQ: 21st ? Position of item for UQ: 30st ?

Median: 19 ? The 14th item doesn’t

Median class interval: ?
LQ: 18 ? occur within the first LQ class interval: ?
8 items, but does
UQ: 22 ? occur within first 15. UQ class interval: ?
IQR: 22 – 18 = 4?
The ‘class intervals’ are
just the time ranges. We
want the one in which
the 20th item lies.
 Exercise 1 (on provided sheet)

1 Determine the Lower Quartile, Median, Upper Quartile and Interquartile Range of each
list of numbers.

e Age (years) Freq

a 1, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 20 6
6
LQ: 7, M: 10, UQ:?15, IQR: 8 7
7
1
1
b 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
2
2
13, 14, 15
3
3
LQ: 4, M: 8, UQ: ?12, IQR: 8

-3, 0, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10.5, 11 ? 21, IQR: 3

LQ: 18, M: 19, UQ:
c
LQ: 4, M: 7, UQ: 10, ? IQR: 6 Weight of cat (kg) Freq
2
6
6
d 8, 10, 14, 15, 20, 22, 25
8
8
LQ: 10, M: 15, UQ:? 22, IQR: 12
5
5
3
3
1
1

 
Mean class interval: ?
Modal class interval: ?
 Exercise 1 (on provided sheet)

3 For the following marks: 6  [Edexcel GCSE June 2017 2H Q12a]

3 9 2 10 1 11 4 The table gives information about
Determine: the heights of 35 girls. Find the class
(a) The median 4? (b) Lower Quartile 2? interval that contains the median.
(c) Upper quartile 10
? (d) Interquartile range 8 ? Answer: ?
4 [Edexcel IGCSE Jan2015(R)-3H Q12a]
Here are the marks scored in a test by the girls in class 8C.
     2     8    10    12    15    16    16    17    18    19    20
Work out the interquartile range of the girls’ marks.
Answer: ? 8
5 [Edexcel IGCSE May2015(R)-4H Q5b]
Jordan’s school awards certificates for outstanding work.
The table shows information about the numbers of
certificates awarded in Jordan’s class during a term.
7 [June2003-5H Q14a] Mary recorded the
Work out the interquartile range of the numbers of heights, in centimetres, of the girls in her
certificates awarded. Answer:
? 3 class.
She put the heights in order.
 132   144   150   152   160   162   162
 167   167   170   172   177   181   182  182
Determine the lower and upper quartiles.
Answer: 152cm,? 177cm
 Exercise 1 (on provided sheet)

8 [Nov
  2017 3H Q1a] The N1 [JMC 2017 Q20] The range of a list of
table shows information integers is 20, and the median is 17.
about the heights of 80 What is the smallest possible number of
children. Find the class integers in the list?
interval that contains Answer: 2 numbers? (7 and 27)
the median.
? N2 [Hamilton 2016 Q5] James chooses five
different positive integers, each at most
eight, so that their mean is equal to
their median.
9 [Edexcel IGCSE Jan2015(R)-3H Q12b] In how many different ways can he do
Here are the marks scored in a test by the girls in class 8C. this?
       2      8     10    12    15    16    16 10 ways
?
       17    18   19    20
(a) Find the interquartile range of this data.
8 marks ?
(b) The boys in class 8C did the same test.
The boys’ marks had a range of 19 and an interquartile
range of 11 marks. Gareth says that the girls’ marks are
more spread out than the boys’ marks. Is Gareth right?
No, IQR/range for boys is greater than girls.
?
Cumulative Frequency
“Cumulative” means running total. It allows us to say
the count up to a particular value.

 
How many students had “up to” 2
certificates?
?
How many students had “up to” 3
certificates?

Convert to cumulative (or we can just add 1 on to the previous

frequency table.
total of 20) ?
Cumulative Frequency
4
13
20
?
21
27
30
Cumulative Frequency Tables for Grouped Data

Cumulative Freq
Convert to
cumulative ?
frequency table.
?
130 <h ≤ 150
  ?
  15
? ≤ 160
130 <h
  ?
  39
? ≤ 170
130 <h
  ?
  61
130<h
  ? ≤ 180 ?
  80

This updated class interval should

reflect ‘everything up to 150’ (i.e.
not just between 140 and 150).
100m times at the 2012 London Olympics

Time (s) Frequency CF

Let’s use this data to plot something called a
1 1 ? cumulative frequency graph.
4 5 ?
To save the hassle of having to write a separate
10 15 ? cumulative frequency table, we can just add an
17 32 ? extra cumulative frequency column.
 Time (s) Frequency Cum Freq Cumulative Frequency Graphs
9.6 < t ≤ 9.7 1 1 This type of graph is incredibly useful
Plot in estimating how many people had
9.7 < t ≤ 9.9 4 5 Plot a particular value of less, e.g.
9.9 < t ≤ 10.05 10 15 “Estimate how many runners had a
Plot time of up to 10 secs”. It also allows
32 10.05 < t ≤ 10.2 17 32 Plot us to estimate the median/quartiles.
There’s 32 runners, so the middle runner is the 16 th (for cumulative
28 frequency graphs we can simply half the total frequency, without the usual ?
Median = 10.07s
Cumulative Frequency

adjustment for listed values). So use line graph to estimate 16 th value.

24
Lower Quartile
20 We don’t know what time ?
= 9.95s
the fastest runner had, but
we can be certain that 1
16 We know 0
runner had a time of “up
runners had
a time of “up to” 9.7 secs. We use the Upper Quartile
endpoint of each interval.
12 to” 9.6 secs.
Always plot
?
= 10.13s
the lowest Mark schemes allow either
8 value using a a curved line or joining each
CF of 0. pair of points with a straight Interquartile Range
4
line. (I do the latter)
?
= 0.18s
A quarter of 32 is
8, so look up 8th
0 runner.

9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3

Time (s)
 A Cumulative Frequency Graph is very useful for finding the number
of values greater/smaller than some value, or within a range. Cumulative Frequency Graphs

Estimate how many

32 runners had a time less
than 10.15s.
28
? runners
26
Cumulative Frequency

24
Estimate how many
20 runners had a time more
than 9.95
16
Observe that this time
 we’re looking up values 32 – ?
8 = 24 runners
12 on the time () axis.
Estimate how many
8 runners had a time
between 9.8s and 10s
4
11 –?3 = 8 runners
0
9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3
Time (s)
 Time (s) Frequency Cum Freq
Students often get confused
between cumulative frequency 9.6 < t ≤ 9.7 1 1 Plot
graph and frequency polygons, so be
aware of their differences!
9.7 < t ≤ 9.9 4 5 Plot
9.9 < t ≤ 10.05 17 22 Plot
Sketch Line
10.05 < t ≤ 10.2 10 32 Plot

Cumulative Frequency Graph Frequency Polygon

Cumulative Frequency

32 18

28 16

Frequency
24 14

20 12

16 10

12 8

8 4

4 2

0 0
9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 10.0 10.1 10.2

Time (s) Time (s)

 Test Your Understanding (on provided sheet)

[Edexcel IGCSE(9-1) SAM 2H Q12]

The table shows information about the amount of money that 120
people spent in a shop.
b On the grid, draw a cumulative
frequency graph for the table.

a Complete the cumulative

frequency table.

c Use the graph to find an estimate for the median

amount of money spent in the shop by these people.

Solutions on next slide.

 Solution (on provided sheet)

[Edexcel IGCSE(9-1) SAM 2H Q12]

The table shows information about the amount of money that 120
people spent in a shop.
b On the grid, draw a cumulative
frequency graph for the table.

a Complete the cumulative

frequency table.

c Use the graph to find an estimate for the median

amount of money spent in the shop by these people.
Approximately 33
Exercise 3
Cumulative Frequency Graphs
Printed handout.
Solutions on next slides.
1

5?
?
23
?
35
?
39
?
40

?
179
2

?
34

?
Lower Quartile = 16

?
Upper Quartile = 44.5
We previously found:
Minimum = 9, Maximum = 57, LQ = 16, Median = 34, UQ = 44.5

1 mark: Range/interquartile range of boys’ times is greater.

? is greater.
1 mark: Median of boys’ times
3

44
100

 25< 𝐴?≤ 35
134 ?
153
160

?30

40.9
  − 24.1=16.8
?
(e) Another IT company has 80 employees.

? The age of the youngest employee is 24 years.

The age of the oldest employee is 54 years.

The median age is 38 years. The lower quartile age is 30 years.

The upper quartile age is 44 years.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
A g e (A ) in y e a rs
4 [Edexcel GCSE June2006-3I Q25c, June2006-5H Q14c]
A company tested 100 batteries. The table shows
(b) On the grid, draw a
information about the number of hours that the
cumulative frequency graph for
batteries lasted. Time (t hours) Frequency
50 ≤ t < 55 12
your completed table.
55 ≤ t < 60 21
60 ≤ t < 65 36
65 ≤ t < 70 23
70 ≤ t < 75 8

(a) Complete the cumulative frequency table

for this information.
Time Cumulative ?
frequency
(t hours)
50 ≤ t < 55 12
50 ≤ t < 60 33
50 ≤ t < 65
50 ≤ t < 70 ?69
92 
50 ≤ t < 75  100

(c) Use your completed graph to find an

estimate for the median time.
You must state the units of your answer.
Accept 62 – 64 hours
?
 5 [Edexcel GCSE Nov2007-3I Q20ii, Nov2007-5H
Q11ii] Here is the cumulative frequency curve
of the weights of 120 girls at Mayfield
Secondary School.

140

120
Use the cumulative frequency curve to
find an estimate for the
100 (i) median weight,
Accept 72-74 kg
?
80
(ii) interquartile range of the weights.
C u m u la tiv e
freq u e n c y Accept 14-17kg (lines for quartiles
60
must be shown on ? the diagram)
40

20

0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100

W e ig h t (k g )
6

C?
D?
B?
A?
 CARD SORT SOLUTIONS

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph
 ?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph

?
? ?
Cumulative
Description Box Plot
Frequency Graph
The Whole Picture...
Frequency
Histogram Polygon

Grouped Cumulative
Widths (cm): Frequency Table Frequency Table
4, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, Width (cm) Frequency Width (cm) Cum Freq

15, 18, 28, 42 0 < w < 10 4 0 < w < 10 4

10 < w < 25 6 0 < w < 25 10
25 < w < 60 2 0 < w < 60 12

Determine
Median/LQ/UQ Median/LQ/UQ Cumulative
class interval Frequency
Graph

Estimate of
Median/LQ/UQ/num
Box Plots values in range