Question

Energetic refrigerators Consumer Reports magazine rated different types of refrigerators, including those with bottom freezers, those with top freezers, and those with side freezers. One of the variables they measured was annual energy cost (in dollars). The following boxplots show the energy cost distributions for each of these types. Compare the energy cost distributions for the three types of refrigerators.

Short answer

The top and side distributions are generally symmetric, whereas the bottom distribution is right-skewed.

The center of the Top distribution is the lowest, whereas the center of the Side distribution is the highest.

The spread in the top distribution is the smallest, while the spread in the bottom distribution is the largest.

There are two outliers in the Bottom distribution, but there are none in the Top or Side distributions.

Step-by-step solution

Step 1. Given information.

The given information is:

Step 2. Compare the energy cost distributions for the three types of refrigerators.

The box is nearly in the middle between the whiskers, the Top and Side distributions appear to be roughly symmetrical. Because the box in the boxplot is to the left between the whiskers, the bottom distributions are skewed to the right.

The horizontal line in the box of the boxplot (which represents the median) represents the centre of the distributions. The centre of the Side distribution looks to be the highest, whereas the centre of the Top distribution appears to be the lowest, as seen below.

The spread is represented by the distance between the boxplot's whiskers. The spread appears to be greatest for the Bottom distribution and smallest for the Top distribution.

We see that the Bottom distribution has two outliers (indicated in the boxplot), whereas the Top and Side distributions appear to be devoid of outliers.