Measures of the Spread of the Data · Exercise 33

Suppose that a publisher conducted a survey asking adult consumers the number of fiction paperback books they had purchased in the previous month. The results are summarized in the table.

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\text{Number of Books}& \text{Frequency}& \text{Relative Frequency}\\ \text{0}& \text{18}& \\ \text{1}& \text{24}& \\ \text{2}& \text{24}& \\ \text{3}& \text{22}& \\ \text{4}& \text{15}& \\ \text{5}& \text{10}& \\ \text{7}& \text{5}& \\ \text{9}& \text{1}& \end{array}$$

(a) Are there any outliers in the data? Use an appropriate numerical test involving the IQR to identify outliers, if any, and clearly state your conclusion.
(b) If a data value is identified as an outlier, what should be done about it?
(c) Are any data values farther than two standard deviations away from the mean? In some situations, statisticians may use this criterion to identify data values that are unusual, compared to the other data values. Note that this criterion is most appropriate to use for data that is mound shaped and symmetric rather than for skewed data.
(d) Do Parts a and c of this problem give the same answer?
(e) Examine the shape of the data. Which part, a or c, of this question gives a more appropriate result for this data?
(f) Based on the shape of the data, which is the most appropriate measure of center for this data, mean, median, or mode?

Its source prints no answer for this problem, so there's nothing to check against.

OpenStax, Statistics · §2.7 Measures of the Spread of the Data · Exercise 33