Question

For each of the following, state whether you expect the distribution to be symmetric, right skewed, or left skewed. Also specify whether the mean or median would best represent a typical observation in the data, and whether the variability of observations would be best represented using the standard deviation or IQR. Explain your reasoning. Housing prices in a country where 25% of the houses cost below $350,000, 50% of the houses cost below $450,000, 75% of the houses cost below $1,000,000 and there are a meaningful number of houses that cost more than $6,000,000.

Answer 1

Answer:

I have solved part a) because question contains only part a) however it has 3 more parts as well but that are not mentioned in the question. Part a) is explained below.

Explanation:

a) The distribution should be right skewed as most of the numbers lies at that side while using the median to correctly represent an observation in the distribution.

To represent the variability of the observations, interquartile range could be used. Since, there is a good number of expensive houses and this would increase the mean and standard deviation. So, it is better to use interquartile range to represent it, i.e. upper quartile for expensive houses, and lower quartile for less expensive houses and middle quartile for mid-range priced houses.