Question

Who studies more? Researchers asked the students in a large first-year college class how many minutes they studied on a typical weeknight. The back-to-back stemplot displays the responses from random samples of 30 women and 30 men from the class, rounded to the nearest 10 minutes. Write a few sentences comparing the male and female distributions of study time.

Short answer

The distribution of women is roughly symmetric, whereas the distribution of men is skewed to the right.

In the women's distribution, the value 360 appears to be an outlier, whereas in the men's distribution, the value 300 appears to be an outlier.

The median of the female distribution appears to be higher than that of the male distribution. The variability in the women's distribution appears to be the same as in the men's distribution.

Step-by-step solution

Step 1. Given information. 

Leaf ( Women)	Stem	Leaf (Man
	0	03333
96	0	56668999
22222222	1	02222222
888888888875555	1	558
4440	2	00344
	2
	3	0
6	3

Key: $\overline{)2}3$represents 230 minutes

Step 2.comparing the male and female distributions of study time.  

The distribution of women is roughly symmetric (as most of the data values lie in the middle of the stemplot when the outlier is excluded), whereas the distribution of men is skewed to the right (as most of the data values lie near the top of the stemplot with a tail of more unusual data values near the bottom of the stemplot).

The value 360 appears to be an outlier in the women's distribution (as it is separated from the rest of the data by a gap), whereas the value 300 appears to be an outlier in the men's distribution (as it is separated from the rest of the data by a gap) (as the value is separated from the rest of the data by a gap).

The median is the sorted data set's middle value. The median of the female distribution (175 minutes) appears to be greater than the median of the male distribution (120 minutes).

Because both distributions use seven stems, the women's distribution appears to have the same amount of variability as the men's distribution (including the stems in the gaps between data values).

As a results:

The distribution of women is roughly symmetric, whereas the distribution of men is skewed to the right.

In the women's distribution, the value 360 appears to be an outlier, whereas in the men's distribution, the value 300 appears to be an outlier.

The median of the female distribution appears to be higher than that of the male distribution. The variability in the women's distribution appears to be the same as in the men's distribution.