Question

Melissa wants to know if the number of words on a page in her geography book is generally more than the number of words on a page in her math book. She takes a random sample of 25 pages in each book, then calculates the mean, median, and mean absolute deviation for the 25 samples of each book.

Mean Median Mean Absolute Deviation
Geography 48.9 41 9.2
Math 34.5 44 1.9

She claims that because the mean number of words on each page in the geography book is greater than the mean number of words on each page in the math book, the geography book has more words per page. Based on the data, is this a valid inference? Yes, because the mean is larger in the geography book

No, because the mean is larger in the geography book

No, because there is a lot of variability in the geography book data

Yes, because there is a lot of variability in the geography book data

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT 3.5]

No, because there is a lot of variability in the geography book data. The mean absolute deviation for the geography book is much higher than for the math book, indicating that there is more variability in the number of words on each page in the geography book. This means that the mean may not be a reliable measure of central tendency for the geography book, and it is not necessarily true that the geography book has more words per page overall.