Plinko

Home > Plinko > Page 7

Here is another situation involving presidents and data sets.

Khalid and Andrew are getting intrigued about normal distributions and normal curves. They begin to think that any large set of data will result in a normal curve.

They decide to revisit the data on the presidents of the United States, since there are a large number of presidents in that data set.

 

President	Number of Terms in Office	Number of Years Served	Number of Days Served
1. G. Washington	2	6.34	2865
2. J. Adams	1	4	1460
3. T. Jefferson	2	8	2922
4. J. Madison	2	8	2922
5. J. Monroe	2	8	2922
6. J. Q. Adams	1	4	1461
7. A. Jackson	2	8	2922
8. M. Van Buren	1	4	1461
9. W. H. Harrison	1	0.08	31
10. J. Tyler	1	3.92	1430
11. J. Polk	1	4	1461
12. Z. Taylor	1	1.33	491
13. M. Fillmore	1	2.67	969
14. F. Pierce	1	4	1461
15. J. Buchanan	1	4	1461
16. A. Lincoln	2	4.11	1503
17. A. Johnson	1	3.86	1419
18. U. Grant	2	8	2922
19. R. Hayes	1	4	1461
20. J. Garfield	1	0.54	199
21. C. Arthur	1	3.46	1262
22. G. Cleveland	1	4	1461
23. B. Harrison	1	4	1461
24. G. Cleveland	1	4	1461
25. W. McKinley	2	4.5	1654
26. T. Roosevelt	2	7.5	2728
27. W. H. Taft	1	4	1461
28. W. Wilson	2	8	2922
29. W. Harding	1	2.42	881
30. C. Coolidge	2	5.58	2041
31. H. Hoover	1	4	1461
32. F. D. Roosevelt	4	12.08	4422
33. H. Truman	2	7.75	2840
34. D. Eisenhower	2	8	2922
35. J. F. Kennedy	1	2.83	1036
36. L. Johnson	2	5.17	1886
37. R. Nixon	2	5.5	2027
38. G. Ford	1	2.42	895
39. J. Carter	1	4	1461
40. R. Reagan	2	8	2922
41. G. H. Bush	1	4	1461
42. W. Clinton	2	8	2922
43. G. W. Bush	2	8	2922
44. B. Obama	2	(still completing term in 2014)	(still completing term in 2014)

The boys decided to focus on the “Number of Years Served” again (omitting President Obama since he has not completed his term in office). Enter this data into your graphing calculator and construct a histogram. Use the WINDOW shown on the right.

 

Show AnswerHide Answer

A screen shot of the resulting histogram is shown. There are five bars, a gap, and then one bar. The graph is strongly skewed left.

Check Your Understanding

The data for the presidents’ years served is not a normal distribution. The data does not form a normal curve. The data is skewed right. This means that there are data values that are much higher than the rest of the data, and could possibly be outliers. (Data that is skewed left contains data values that are much lower than the rest of the data.)

Use the TRACE feature of the calculator to find which president is causing the data to skew to the right.

Show AnswerHide Answer
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at 12.08 years of service.

Check Your Understanding

Check Your Understanding

 

< Previous Next >