How do you draw a box and whisker plot of the data: 29, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41?

1 Answer
Jul 29, 2018

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Explanation:

29, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41

The minimum is the lowest number in the data set.
Since it is listed from smallest to largest, we know that the minimum is 29.

The median is the middle number. Cancel out 3 numbers from each side and we are left with the median:
cancel(29), cancel(33), cancel(36), 37, cancel(39), cancel(40), cancel(41)

Therefore, the median is 37.

The first quartile (Q1) is the median of the lower half of data which lies at 25% of the data.
Let's look at the lower half of numbers:
29, 33, 36

The number in the middle is 33, so that is the first quartile.

The third quartile (Q3) is the median of the upper half of data which lies at 75% of the data.

Let's look at the upper half of numbers:
39, 40, 41

The number in the middle is 40, so that is the third quartile.

The maximum is the highest number in the data set; it is 41.

So here's the five-number summary:
Minimum: 29

First quartile: 33

Median: 37

Third quartile: 40

Maximum: 41

This is what a typical box-and-whisker plot looks like:
faculty.nps.edu

So here's the box-and-whisker plot for this data:
enter image source here

Hope this helps!