Question

Which of the following types of data are likely to be normally distributed?


Check all that apply.

A. The time it takes for a kernel of popcorn to pop
B. The outcomes of rolling a single fair die
C. The time it takes for an airliner to fly from Los Angeles to New York
D. The heights of all high school students in the United States
E. The distance of an archer's shots from the center of a target

I'm struggling to figure this one out.

Answer 1

I think C and D are correct.

Answer 2

basically the bell curve, right?

i think it is only D

Answer 3

Are you sure that A doesn't follow the same curve?

Answer 4

Kernels would take say +/- x amount amount of time to pop?

Answer 5

probably, but i'm thinking it would be around the same, not enough difference to make a bell

Answer 6

This is an online course where there's always 2+ answers to these sort of questions. I'm hesitant to accept D being the only correct one.

Answer 7

in fact, it might actually be a bell curve because majority should pop at the same time

but since i've never popped kernels before i can't say for sure for that one haha
but it is the most likely, after D

Answer 8

B wouldn't be a bell curve. It'd be a straight line correct? The archery one would be random for lack of a better term and C, the airplane one doesn't really allow for a curve right?

Answer 9

Or how badly mistaken am I?

Answer 10

That wasn't correct. Not sure what the correct answer is.

Answer 11

sorry for the late reply

nah the airplane one would be on time and one or two weird peaks.

b would be the fairest of all yup

the archer one, actually has potential for a curve. try that too.

Answer 12

Here's one possible guideline - we generally obtain an ideal Normal distribution by adding (or averaging) several draws from a particular distribution. Even if the distribution if binary (heads/tails) - if we take the sum of 10 coin flips, for example, over and over and over again, that distribution will start to look Normal.

Also note that Normal is 1) symmetric, and 2) has asymptotes in both positive and negative directions. That is, there is no theoretical limit to the min or max of that distribution. This would, for example, eliminate the "distance from the bulls eye", since those can only be positive, with a hard stop at zero.

A single fair die has a Uniform distribution, so no dice (pun intended)

A, C, and E are all possibilities. A and C both look a lot like typical situations where there is a mean outcome and each even is a deviation from that mean. I'm less fond of E because that depends on the distribution of actual kids - A and C depend on repetitions of identical events, more or less.

But B and D are definitely not Normal, f