Stat 51: I Will Survive

Lyrics copyright by Sheila O'Leary Weaver
may sing to the tune of "I Will Survive" (Gloria Gaynor)

At first I was afraid; I was petrified.
I just hadn't realized my data was skewed to one side.
And now I'd spent so many hours finding the mean and the SD,
But now I see, just how misleading they can be.

So now I'll go; walk out the door.
I'll get an F in here; I may not stay in college anymore.
I should have dropped this stupid class; I should have bought the answer key.
I should have thought for just one second, office hours were for me.

But no, I'll try, a new technique.
I'll rank the data, and the middle is the median I seek.
The middles of the halves are called the Quartiles 1 and 3,
Add the min and max - that's the five number summary.

Stat 51, I will survive
As long as I can pass this class, I know I'll be alive,
I've got all my life to live,
One semester's time to give:
I will survive, I will survive,
Hey, Hey....

Dance Interlude

To put it in a graph, I'll draw a number line.
Make spacing even or interpretation's undermined.
Draw vertical lines at each number and connect the middle three,
And a boxplot will result to show the lack of symmetry.

And now I'll find the IQR.
It's Q3 minus Q1. If it's big, the data spreads out far.
If a number's more than 1.5 IQR from the box,
It gets a star, and you can call it an outlier.

And now I'm done. My summary,
Is more appropriate for data that is lacking symmetry
The mean and the SD may be affected by the skew.
But my way's strong: It's more robust and it's not wrong....

Stat 51, I will survive
As long as I can pass this class, I know I'll be alive,
I've got all my life to live,
One semester's time to give:
I will survive, I will survive,
Hey, Hey....

More Dancing