Question

two histograms showing the number of pets owned by boys and girls in a science class are each skewed left. which measure of variability should be used to describe the data?
mean
median
standard deviation
interquartile range

Explanation:

When data is skewed (either left - skewed or right - skewed), the mean is affected by the extreme values in the tail of the distribution. The standard deviation is also affected by extreme values as it is based on the deviation from the mean. The median is a measure of central tendency, not a measure of variability. The interquartile range (IQR), which is the difference between the third quartile (\(Q_3\)) and the first quartile (\(Q_1\)) (\(IQR = Q_3 - Q_1\)), is less affected by extreme values. It represents the spread of the middle 50% of the data. For skewed data, the interquartile range is a more appropriate measure of variability compared to the standard deviation.

Answer:

interquartile range