High School

Which of the following pairs of measures of center indicates positive skew in a normal distribution?

A. mean = 66, mode = 72
B. mean = 72, median = 66
C. mean = 72, mode = 66
D. mean = 66, median = 72

Answer :

The measures of central tendency that indicate a positive skew in normal distribution from the given options is b. mean = 72, median = 66. Positive skew means the mean will be greater than the median. Therefore, the correct option is B

The student has asked about a measure of central tendency that indicates a positive skew in a normal distribution. To determine positive skewness in a dataset, we look for the mean to be greater than the median, which, in turn, should be greater than or equal to the mode. This is because, in a positively skewed distribution, the mean gets pulled by the long tail on the right-hand side of the distribution.

Based on the given options, the pair of measures that indicates a positive skew would be b. mean = 72, median = 66. This is because the mean is greater than the median, suggesting that the dataset has a long tail to the right, which is indicative of a positive skew.

The median tends to be a better central tendency measure in a skewed distribution because it is less affected by extremely high or low values compared to the mean. The mode is simply the most frequently occurring number in a dataset