Question

A small business owner recorded the number of telephone calls received every day for 10 days.
59 75 92 70 85 90 89 65 95 87
Based on the data, which measure of center and variability would BEST indicate to the owner the typical number of calls his business receives in 1 day?
A. mode
B. mean
C. median
D. range

Answer 1

The best measure of center for this data would be the median, and the best measure of variability would be the IQR.

The reason the median is the best measure of center is because the data is skewed to the left.  See the box and whisker plot attached. 

This is the same reason the IQR (interquartile range) is a better measure of variability.

It is better to use a measure from the middle part of the data.