Analyzing the Geometry of Frequency
Statement (A)
Imagine you are looking at a histogram, which is a visual representation of a frequency distribution. The x-axis holds your class intervals, and the y-axis holds the frequency. The mode, by definition, is the value that appears most often.
In a histogram, this is the tallest bar, which we call the modal class. To find the exact value, we use a geometric construction. By drawing diagonal lines from the top corners of the modal bar to the corners of the adjacent bars, we create an intersection point.
Dropping a perpendicular from this intersection to the x-axis gives us the mode. This proves that the mode can indeed be computed from a histogram. Thus, Statement (A) is correct.
The Stretching of the Number Line
Statement (B)
The median is the positional middle of your data. Imagine your data points are beads on a string; if you sort them, the median is the bead in the exact center.
Now, consider a 'change of scale,' which means multiplying every single observation by a constant a. If you have a set of data x and you transform it to y=ax, you are essentially stretching the entire number line.
If the original median was M, the new median becomes a×M. Because the median changes when we change the scale, it is not independent of the scale. Therefore, Statement (B) is correct.
The Squared Deviation
Statement (C)
Variance measures the spread of data, calculated as the average of the squared deviations from the mean:
First, consider the change of origin: y=x+b. When you shift the entire dataset by b, the mean also shifts by b, meaning the distance between any two points (xi−xˉ) remains constant. Thus, the variance is independent of the change of origin.
However, consider the change of scale: y=ax. When you multiply every value by a, the deviations also get multiplied by a. Because variance involves squared deviations, the new variance becomes:
The variance is scaled by the square of the constant. Because it depends on the scale, the claim that it is independent of both origin and scale is false. Therefore, Statement (C) is incorrect.
Conclusion
By dissecting these properties, we see that statistics is not just about memorizing formulas; it is about understanding how operations transform our data. We found that Statement (A) is correct, Statement (B) is correct, and Statement (C) is incorrect.
The correct choice is only (A) and (B).