Unit 3: Business Statistics–Instructor GradedProject
You must show your work on all problems. You may type your answer right into this document.
Total points
Part I. Basic Computations
1. Monthly sales in thousands of dollars for women’s dresses at a local department store for last year
were:
Jan: $125
Mar: $236
May: $595
July: $645
Sep: $1030
Nov: $985
Feb: $214
Apr: $801
June: $550
Aug: $732
Oct: $880
Dec: $1750
a. Determine the mean monthly sales, rounded to the nearest whole thousand (4 points)
Answer:8543/12= 712
b. Determine the median monthly sales? (3 points)
Answer:688.5
125 214 236 550 595 645 732 801 880 985 1030 1750
645+732/2
c. Determine the mode? (3 points)
Answer: Not Applicable or Nil or 0
645+732/2
2. The data below shows the number of games played by a group of college volleyball players.
Name
J. Rath
L. Patrone
S. Kandefer
J. Waldron
E. Braun
A. Street
B. Rowan
A. Pinak
L. Schwach
B. Smith
M. Lesser
K. O'Connor
V. Petko
R. Moore
K. Cooper
GamesPlayed
82
68
110
119
124
116
113
67
133
131
124
18
110
127
135
Name
C. Worth
A. Baker
A. Kamsch
M. Springer
C. Sullivan
J. Pike
A. DiPoala
K. Parish
C. Schiavello
J. Brown
S. Jokajtys
E. Amand
L. Kraft
K. Sessions
GamesPlayed
113
113
76
154
67
52
143
18
112
41
81
45
81
52
Create a frequency distribution for the number of games played, using the intervals shown. Compute
the frequency and relative frequency.
Range
Frequency
(5 points)
< 44
45 – 69
70 – 84
85 – 99
100 – 114
115 - 129
130 – 144
> 145
Range
Frequency
(5 points)
< 44
45 – 69
70 – 84
85 – 99
100 – 114
115 - 129
130 – 144
> 145
3
6
4
0
6
5
4
1
Relative
Frequency
(5 points)
0.10
0.21
0.14
0.00
0.21
0.17
0.14
0.03
3/29
6/29
4/29
0/29
6/29
5/29
4/29
1/29
Relative Frequency
(5 points)
Part II. Case Study
3. A small fullfillment company provides promotion services to local businesses that offer mail-in offers to
their customers. For example, a soft-drink manufacturer might decide to offer a free beach towel to
their customers who purchase 5 of their 1-liter soft drink bottles. The fulfillment company will store
all the beach towels in a big warehouse. The customer is instructed on the mail-in offer to send their
proof-of-purchase to the fulfillment company. The fulfillment company handles all the shipping and
handling of the beach towels and sends the products directly to the customers.
The fulfillment company employs 20 people with the following annual salaries:
$145,000 - President
$ 80,000 – Sales Manager
$ 30,000 – Warehouse Supervisor $ 20,000 – Loading Dock Supervisor
$ 110,000 – Vice president
$ 65,000 – Production Manager
$ 18,000 – Four shipping clerks
$ 17,000 – Ten warehouse laborers
a. (5 points) Calculate the mean, median, and mode for the salaries.
Answer:
Mean
Median
Mode
692000/20
17000+18000/2
34600
17500
17000
(5 points) The statistic most often used to describe company salaries is the median or the mean.
For this company, does the mean give an accurate description of the salaries? Why or why not?
Answer: No as the mean is 34600 while more than 50% or total 16 employees salaries are less than
mean of 34600.
b. (5 points) Which statistic would this company’s labor union representative be most likely to cite
during contract negotiations and why?
Answer: The median as around 14 employees salary is the nearest to this level of earnings.
c. In addition to promotion services support, the company also fulfills “Direct Sales” of small items
such as magazines and consumer items. Shown below are some graphical and summary data
showing total sales for the last 3 years.
Direct Sales
Promotions
Average (per quarter)
Standard Deviation
Direct Sales
$343,158
$213,232
$300,000
$141,771
Direct Sales
Promotions
Promotions
3Q2009
4Q2008
1Q2008
2Q2007
3Q2009
4Q2008
1Q2008
2Q2007
3Q2006
4Q2005
1Q2005
$0.00
3Q2006
$500,000.00
4Q2005
$1,000,000.00
1Q2005
$1,000,000.00
$800,000.00
$600,000.00
$400,000.00
$200,000.00
$0.00
$1,500,000.00
(10 points) Analyze this data by comparing and contrasting the two graphical representations and
the numerical statistics regarding the sales data. Using the evidence from above, explain in a wellstructured essay the benefits and shortcomings of both the column chart and the line graph. Do
you think that this company is doing well in generating sales revenue?
Requirements
- Write your essay in this document – do not save it in a separate file.
- You must clearly state your position with well-structured paragraphs using proper grammar,
spelling, and sentence structure.
- This is not an “opinion” question – you must offer evidence to support your position, using
properly-cited sources
- Your answer must be between 150-250 words (about 1 page of text)
Answer: The column chart tells the total sales of a particular period, here it is for each quarter. It
shows sales due to two reasons, one is direct sales and other is due to promotions. The column chart
gives the impression that all direct sales did occur first in each quarter while promotions activities
occurred later on. This not may be the case, the occurrence of each sales might be different than what
is presented through column chart. The line graph is showing the level of sales of each activity in each
quarter, but it does not show the total sales of each quarter. Comparatively, the column chart gives
the better presentation of the figures. The coefficinet of variation of direct sales is 213232/343158 =
62.14% and for promotions it is 141771/300000 = 47.26%. It shows that company sales are very
vulnerable from both activities, but the direct sales is more vulnerable as compared to promontions
activities due to higher coefficient of variation for direct sales.
Students in MM255 may submit their projects to the Math Center for review. Tutors will not grade or correct
the project, but they will provide guidance for improvement.
Students should submit assignments early enough to receive feedback and make corrections before the project
due date (24 hour turn-around times Monday-Thursday and 48 hour turn-around times on weekends are
typical).
Email projects to: kumc@kaplan.edu. Please put “project review” in the subject line of the message.