Chapter 15, Problem 55E

The purpose of Exercises 55 and 56 is to practice computing standard deviations the old fashioned way (by hand). Granted, computing standard deviations this way is not the way it is generally done in practice; a good calculator (or a computer package) will do it much faster and more accurately. The point is that computing a few standard deviations the old-fashioned way should help you understand the concept a little better. If you use a calculator or a computer to answer these exercises, you are defeating their purpose.

Find the standard deviation of each of the following data sets.

a. $\left\{5,5,5,5\right\}$

b. $\left\{0,5,5,10\right\}$

c. $\left\{0,10,10,20\right\}$

d. $\left\{1,2,3,4,5\right\}$