Interpreting the Shape of Data Distributions N Objective In this lesson, you will Suppose you decide to a take a break from college and take a job while you make up your mind about which subject you want to major in or whether you want to continue your education. You decide to do some research on the types of jobs you're likely to find and how much money you can make. Knowledge Article: Interpreting the Shape of Data Distributions Section: Differences in Center Suppose that in a small town of 50 people, one person earns $5,000,000 per year and the other 49 each earn $30,000. Which is the most accurate description of the center - the mean or the median? 5,000,000 + (49 . 30,000) mean = = 129,400 50 median = 30,000 The is a more accurate description of the center than the because 49 of the values are 30,000 and one is 5,000,000. The 30,000 gives us a better sense of the of the data. Note that adding one piece of data to this list has no effect on the but an enormous effect on the The person making $5,000,000 is an Outliers are observations-that is, values that have an extreme from the center of the distribution. Section: Differences in Spread Adding an outlier such as in the example above affects as well as center. For example, the range, which would be_ _ without the outlier (because all the data points had the same value), is now 5,000,000 - 30,000, or