Chapter 1 Overview of Statistics 1.1 a. Statistics can be used to 1) determine what a typical commission is and then 2) use that value to identify commissions that appear to be unusually high. b. She could use statistics to show the average energy use compared to previous models. She could also use statistics to show how durable the monitor would be in the field. c. He could use statistics to calculate the average absenteeism at each plant and then compare across the three plants. d. He could calculate average number of defects in each shipment. He could determine variation in number of defects between the three shipments. Learning Objective: 01-1 1.2 a. He could calculate the job turnover for each gender for each restaurant. He could then look at the difference between the various restaurants as well as the difference between genders. b. He could calculate the average number of emails received and sent for employees in different job classifications and make comparisons. c. The portfolio manager could calculate both the average return and the variation on return for the six different investments and make comparisons. d. By studying the busiest times of day for surgery, the administrator could work with surgeons to spread their surgeries out to better use the facilities. He might also look at which surgeries take the longest and which are shorter to help with scheduling. Learning Objective: 01-1 1.3 a. The average business school graduate should expect to use computers to manipulate the data. b. Answers will vary. Weak quantitative skills lead to poor decision making because databased decision making is a hallmark of successful businesses. If one cannot analyze data or understand summary analyses, one will be making decisions without full information. Learning Objective: 01-2 1.4 a. Answers will vary. Why Not Study: It is difficult to become a statistical “expert” after taking one introductory college course. A business person should hire statistical experts and have faith that those who are using statistics are doing it correctly. Why Study: In fact, most college graduates will use statistics every day. Relying on a consultant to perform simple or even complex statistical analyses means turning over part of the business decision-making to someone who doesn’t know your business as well as you do. b. Answers will vary. Answers provided in part a will be similar for the subjects of accounting. Foreign languages are essential in this global business environment of today. While learning a foreign language can take considerably more time as an adult,