Deck 1: Displaying the Order in a Group of Numbers

Question 1

Consider the scores 2,6,7,1,7,8,5,and 4.Which of the following would be the correct second line of a frequency table?

A)
B)
C)
D)

Answer 1

Question 2

The value of putting numbers into a frequency table is that

A)it makes the pattern of numbers clear at a glance.
B)it is easier to draw inferences from tables.
C)such tables are required by many journals.
D)such tables are always formatted in the same way.

Answer 2

it makes the pattern of numbers clear at a glance.

Question 3

A frequency table lists

A)the times per second variations occur in various wave bands.
B)the number of scores at each value.
C)the intensity of a variable over all the participants studied.
D)the average value of each variable.

Answer 3

the number of scores at each value.

Question 4

If a psychologist studying aggressive tendencies in people develops an inventory to measure aggression,the psychologist is using scores on the inventory as a(n)

A)abstract concept.
B)variable.
C)descriptive statistic.
D)invariable construct.

Question 5

Which of the following student characteristics is an example of a rank-order variable?

A)grade point average (3.2,2.5,etc.)
B)number of friends (0,1,etc.)
C)birth position in the family (first,second,etc.)
D)nationality (U.S.,Japanese,etc.)

Question 6

The two branches of statistical methods are

A)theoretical and inferential.
B)intuitive and observational.
C)descriptive and intuitive.
D)descriptive and inferential.

Question 7

Students who have read the first chapter of the textbook and theorize that performance on statistics exams will be related to the number of hours spent studying statistics know that to test their theory,they will need to use

A)common sense.
B)reasoning by analogy.
C)inferential statistics.
D)intuition.

Question 8

Which of the following is most likely to be possible?

A)making a normal curve from a bimodal distribution
B)making a bimodal distribution from a normal curve
C)making an ordinary frequency table from a grouped frequency table
D)making a grouped frequency table from an ordinary frequency table

Question 9

If a psychologist summarizes data for a variable in a frequency table,but finds that there are so many values for the variable that the table is too cumbersome to be useful,the next step would be to make a

A)histogram.
B)frequency polygon.
C)grouped frequency table.
D)bar chart.

Question 10

Which of the following student characteristics is an example of a nominal variable?

A)grade point average (3.2,2.5,etc.)
B)number of friends (0,1,etc.)
C)birth position in the family (first,second,etc.)
D)nationality (U.S.,Japanese,etc.)

Question 11

The length of time a person talks in a group discussion is an example of a(n)

A)continuous variable.
B)categorical variable.
C)transformed variable.
D)extraneous variable.

Question 12

If a difference between scores of 3 and 4 is the same as a difference between scores of 15 and 16,the variable being measured is

A)equal-interval.
B)differential.
C)non-differential.
D)rank-order.

Question 13

A psychologist who constructs a frequency table to summarize data collected on the amount of stress people have experienced in the last 2½ weeks is using

A)a measure of central tendency.
B)a descriptive statistical method.
C)an intuitive statistical method.
D)an inferential statistical method.

Question 14

Another label for "rank-order" is

A)categorical.
B)ratio.
C)ordinal.
D)continuous.

Question 15

In a frequency table,the column designated as "X" lists

A)the number of scores at each value.
B)the participant identification numbers.
C)the possible values of the variable.
D)all the variables studied.

Question 16

The number of problems correct on a test is an example of a

A)continuous variable.
B)discrete variable.
C)log-linear variable.
D)quadratic variable.

Question 17

If the exact degree of difference between two scores has no meaning beyond the fact that one is higher than the other,the level of measurement is

A)nominal.
B)extraneous.
C)rank-order.
D)equal-interval.

Question 18

Each of several patients is rated for their degree of depression,and if a particular patient's depression is rated 8 on a 20-point scale,8 represents that patient's

A)frequency.
B)variable.
C)score.
D)mean.

Question 19

Consider the scores 2,9,7,6,1,9,1,and 2.Which of the following would be the correct bottom line of a frequency table?

A)
B)
C)
D)

Question 20

If an intelligence test includes 12 items so that a person can answer any number of items between 0 and 12 correctly,each of these numbers between 0 and 12 is called a

A)value.
B)variable.
C)rating.
D)mean.

Question 21

If someone told you that a distribution showed a floor effect,you would surmise that it is

A)symmetrical.
B)positively skewed.
C)negatively skewed.
D)rectangular.

Question 22

If a student sees 5.0-9.9 in a table in an article in a psychology journal,the student is seeing

A)an interval.
B)a cumulative percent.
C)a value.
D)an ordinal rank.

Question 23

The best way to display a nominal variable is to use a

A)histogram.
B)grouped frequency table.
C)bar graph.
D)line graph.

Question 24

If someone told you that a distribution showed a ceiling effect,you would surmise that it is

A)symmetrical.
B)positively skewed.
C)negatively skewed.
D)rectangular.

Question 25

In a histogram,the horizontal dimension shows

A)the possible values the variable can have.
B)the intensity of the variable.
C)the mean score.
D)the frequency.

Question 26

The proportions of the axes in a graphic display should usually be

A)square (1 up to 1 across).
B)rectangular wide (about 1½ across to 1 up).
C)rectangular tall (about 1½ up to 1 across).
D)rectangular long (about 1 up to the number of intervals across).

Question 27

When a distribution is heavy-tailed,it is

A)flatter than a normal curve.
B)skewed to the right.
C)skewed to the left.
D)more peaked than a normal curve.

Question 28

Making a histogram is easiest if one begins with

A)a list of all the scores in order.
B)a frequency table.
C)a list of all the percentages in order.
D)a normal curve table.

Question 29

Another way to describe a positively skewed distribution is to say that

A)the distribution is skewed to the left.
B)the distribution is skewed to the right.
C)more scores are piled up at the high end of the range.
D)it illustrates a ceiling effect.

Question 30

The distribution of the scores in most psychological research studies are

A)unimodal.
B)bimodal.
C)multimodal.
D)rectangular.

Question 31

A difference between a histogram and a bar graph is that the bar graph

A)is based on percentages.
B)has spaces between the bars.
C)is for numeric values.
D)begins with a frequency of zero.

Question 32

In a histogram,the vertical dimension shows

A)the possible values the variable can have.
B)the intensity of the variable.
C)the mean score.
D)the frequency.

Question 33

A normal curve is

A)bimodal.
B)symmetrical.
C)kurtotic.
D)skewed.

Question 34

A histogram looks most like

A)a city skyline.
B)a large wave.
C)a silhouette of mountains.
D)a pattern of iron filings.

Question 35

A frequency table is most likely to be included in a research article when

A)the variable involves categories.
B)there are a very small number of scores.
C)a correlation is being reported.
D)there are only two values for the variable.

Question 36

Another way to describe a negatively skewed distribution is to say that

A)the distribution is skewed to the left.
B)the distribution is skewed to the right.
C)more scores are piled up at the low end of the range.
D)it illustrates a floor effect.

Question 37

When a distribution is light-tailed,it is

A)flatter than a normal curve.
B)skewed to the right.
C)skewed to the left.
D)more peaked than a normal curve.

Question 38

Psychologists use frequency tables and histograms to show

A)the relation between two variables.
B)the reasoning behind experiments.
C)the hypotheses they plan to test.
D)the way numbers they collect are distributed.

Question 39

If a psychologist rating empathic responses to strangers' distress on a scale of 1 to 20 finds that most participants have ratings of either 8 or 16,the distribution of ratings is

A)bimodal.
B)unimodal.
C)rectangular.
D)normal.

Question 40

If a psychologist rating empathic responses to strangers' distress on a scale of 1 to 20 finds that most participants have ratings of 8,12,or 16,the distribution of ratings is

A)rectangular.
B)unimodal.
C)multimodal.
D)normal.

Question 41

A variable that has an infinite number of values is __________.

Question 42

A graph of frequencies in which the bars are adjacent to each other is a(n)__________.

Question 43

In a histogram,the vertical axis displays __________.

Question 44

A variable that has specific values and cannot have values between those specific values is a(n)__________.

Question 45

If psychologists want to summarize a group of numbers collected in a research study and make them more understandable,they will use __________.

Question 46

Another name for an ordinal measurement is a(n)__________.

Question 47

A frequency table or histogram describes a(n)__________.

Question 48

A distribution that is flatter or more peaked than a normal curve is said to be __________.

Question 49

If one of the bars of a histogram is higher than all the others,the distribution is __________.

Question 50

Nominal variables,but not rank-order or equal-interval variables,are examples of __________.

Question 51

A way to simplify a frequency table when there are a large number of possible values is to group the scores into __________.

Question 52

If a statistics test is designed to test student knowledge of the shapes of distributions,knowledge of the shapes of distributions is a(n)__________.

Question 53

If the difference between scores of 3 and 4 has the same meaning as the difference between scores of 25 and 26 on a particular measure,the measure is said to be __________.

Question 54

A distribution in which the scores pile up at one end is said to be __________.

Question 55

The type of table created when a psychologist lists the number of employees at each level of earnings from $20,000 to $29,999 going up to $80,000 to $99,999 is a(n)__________.

Question 56

A listing that shows how many times each value of a variable occurs among a particular group of scores is called a(n)__________.

Question 57

Usually,the heading for the third column of a frequency table is __________.

Question 58

If each half of a distribution is a mirror image of the other,the distribution is __________.

Question 59

If psychologists want to draw statistical conclusions that go beyond the numbers actually collected in a research study,they will use __________.

Question 60

If a student answers 20 of 25 multiple-choice items on a statistics test correctly,20 is the student's __________.

Question 61

Graphs can be deceiving when the width to height proportion differs from __________.

Question 62

A drink vendor randomly asked college students which product they had consumed most often during the past month: 13 said water,5 said seltzer,12 said juice,and 20 said cola.
a.Make a frequency table.
b.Make a bar graph based on the frequency table.

Question 63

Since no environment can be more quiet than no noise at all,a survey of noise in various study environments found that noise scores tended to pile up at the low end,reflecting a(n)__________.

Question 64

A distribution that is flat is also referred to as __________.

Question 65

A developmental psychologist surveyed 15 single senior citizens living in private apartments.Each participant completed a questionnaire on the number of telephone conversations he or she had in the last day.Their answers were as follows: 5,0,2,1,1,0,1,0,3,1,1,4,3,4,and 7.
a.Make a frequency table.
b.Make a histogram based on the frequency table.
c.Describe in words the shape of the histogram.

Question 66

A psychologist would include difficult questions on an intelligence test to reduce the number of perfect scores in order to avoid a(n)__________.

Question 67

A prison psychologist recorded the number of rule infractions for 15 prison inmates over a six-month period to be 5,4,2,4,3,5,2,0,4,4,5,5,3,4,and 3.
a.Make a frequency table.
b.Make a histogram based on the frequency table.
c.Describe in words the shape of the histogram.

Question 68

A distribution that is peaked is also referred to as __________.