Statistic Assignment

Project Overview

Have you ever wondered why the package of M&Ms you just bought never seems to have enough of your favorite color? Or, why is it that you always seem to get a package with mostly brown M&Ms? What's going on at the Mars Company? Is the number of the different colors of M&Ms in a package really different from one package to the next? Or, does the Mars Company do enough ensure that each package gets a certain number of each M&M color?

Here's what the Mars Company indicates you should get as the percentages of colors contained in each bag of M&Ms:

13% brown 14% yellow 13% red 24% blue 20% orange 16% green

Source: http://www.mms.com/us/about/products/

Our bag of M&M's has 6 colors; brown, yellow, red, blue, orange and green.

There are 27 Brown M&M's, 35 yellow M&M's, 28 Red M&M's, 46 Blue M&M's, 30 Orange M&Ms and 34 Green M&M's in our bag of M&M's.

Let's calculate the proportion of each color of M&M from our bag and compare it to what the website says we should have gotten. We see that our total sample size is now, n = 200.  There are 27 Brown M&M's, 35 yellow M&M's, 28 Red M&M's, 46 Blue M&M's, 30 Orange M&Ms and 34 Green M&M's in our bag of M&M's.

Requirements:

1. In a Word document, answer the following questions:

· Which colors are higher, lower, or the same proportion as the website?

· How close are our numbers to what the company says we are supposed to get?

· Is any color an outlier?

· Do you think the Mars Company favors one color over another? Why or why not?

· When comparing our proportions to the website's proportions do you think our calculations are an over prediction, under prediction or the same prediction as what to expect from a bag of M&Ms. Why?

2. Using Excel, construct a Histogram with the frequency numbers of each color.

· Make sure there are appropriate labels on your histogram.

· Paste the histogram into your Word document.

3. Using Excel, construct a pie chart using the proportions from each color.

· Make sure there are appropriate labels on your pie chart.

· Paste the pie chart into your Word document.

4. Answer the following questions about the charts you've constructed.

· What do you see?

· What is the shape and distribution?

· Which color has the highest proportion and which color has the lowest proportion and what are they?

5. Submit both the Excel spreadsheet and the Word document.