GMAT数学辅导：算术知识点全解析(标准方差)

　　GMAT数学辅导：算术知识点全解析

　　5.标准方差：

　　One of the most common measures of dispersion is the standard deviation. Generally speaking, the greater the data are spread away from the mean, the greater the standard deviation. The standard deviation of n numbers can be calculated as follows:

　　find the arithmetic mean ;

　　find the differences between the mean and each of the n numbers ;

　　square each of the differences ;

　　find the average of the squared differences ;

　　take the nonnegative square root of this average.

　　Notice that the standard deviation depends on every data value, although it depends most on values that are farthest from the mean. This is why a distribution with data grouped closely around the mean will have a smaller standard deviation than data spread far from the mean.