Department of AI & DS
CSE and CS&IT
COURSE NAME: PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS
COURSE CODE: 24MT2019
Topic
Frequency Distribution and Cumulative Frequency Distribution
Session - 2
AIM OF THE SESSION
To familiarize students with the basics of frequency distribution and their basic properties.
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
This session is designed to
1. Introduce the fundamental concepts of frequency and frequency distribution.
2. Introduce cumulative frequency distribution
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this session, you should be able to
1. Understand the concept of frequency.
2. Procedure to construct frequency distribution.
3. make cumulative frequency distribution table.
SESSION INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS
Frequency
Frequency Distribution
Cumulative Frequency Distribution
Frequency
Frequency: The number of times a particular value or event occurs in a data set.
• In case of grouped data, the number of observations lying in any class is known as the frequency of that class.
Frequency Distribution: Tabular arrangement of data values along with their frequencies.
Cumulative Frequency: It defined as the total of all frequencies up to the value or the class.
Relative Frequency: The relative frequency of a class is the frequency of the class divided by the total
frequency of all the classes.
Frequency of the class
Relative frequency = Total frequency of all classes
Rules for Constructing Frequency Distribution
1. The classes should be well-defined and mutually exclusive (no overlap).
2. Choose a suitable number of class interval, often between 5 and 20.
A general rule for the number of class interval is
𝑘 = 1 + 3.322 log10 𝑁 , where N is the total observations (Strudge’s formula)
3. The class intervals should be of equal length and the class width is determined as
Largest value −Smallest Value
Class width ℎ = Number of classes (𝑘)
4. Open-ended classes should be avoided.
Frequency Distribution
1. Ungrouped or Discrete Frequency Distribution:
• Used when the number of observation is small.
• All distinct observations are mentioned and counted individually.
Example: Make the Frequency Distribution Table for the ungrouped data given as follows:
10, 20, 15, 25, 30, 5, 10, 15, 10, 25, 20, 25, 10, 30, 25
Value Frequency
5 1
10 4
15 2
20 2
25 4
30 2
Frequency Distribution
2. Grouped Frequency Distribution:
• Observations are divided between different intervals known as class intervals with equal length and their
frequencies are counted for each class interval.
• Used mostly when the data set is very large.
• There are two methods of classification – (a) Exclusive method and (b) Inclusive method.
a) Exclusive Method: The upper limit of any class interval is kept the same as the lower limit of the just
higher class. Class Frequency
• It is continuous distribution. 0-10 2
10-20 4
Example 20-30 5
30-40 3
40-50 1
Frequency Distribution
b) Inclusive Method: There will be a gap between the upper limit of any class and the
Class Frequency
lower limit of just higher class.
0-9 2
• It is discontinuous distribution. 10-19 4
20-29 5
Example
30-39 3
40-49 1
o Inclusive frequency distribution can be converted to exclusive frequency distribution by subtracting
half of the gap from lower limit and adding the same quantity to the upper limit.
Frequency Distribution
Example: Construct a frequency distribution table for the following data (considering class width=10) :
25, 32, 45, 8, 24, 42, 22, 12, 9, 15, 6, 35, 23, 41, 26, 18, 44, 37, 27, 46
Inclusive method Exclusive method
Class Interval Frequency Class Interval Frequency
0-9 3 0-9.5 3
10-19 3 9.5-19.5 3
20-29 6 19.5-29.5 6
30-39 3 29.5-39.5 3
40-49 5 39.5-49.5 5
Cumulative Frequency Distribution
Example: Make the Frequency Distribution Table for the ungrouped data given as follows:
10, 20, 15, 25, 30, 5, 10, 15, 10, 25, 20, 25, 10, 30, 25
Value Frequency Cumulative
Frequency
5 1 1
10 4 1+4=5
15 2 5+2=7
20 2 7+2=9
25 4 9+4=13
30 2 13+2=15
SUMMARY
In this session, fundamental properties of frequency and graphical representation of data were discussed.
Main takeaways are -
1. Frequency and cumulative frequency.
2. Different types of frequency distributions
SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS
1. Using Struge’s formula, find the number of classes for a total of 30 observation
i. 5
ii. 6
iii. 7
iv. 3
2. Find cumulative frequency distribution for the following data
Class interval 0-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50
Frequency 4 7 6 2 5
TERMINAL QUESTIONS
1. Make the Frequency Distribution Table for the ungrouped data given as follows:
23, 27, 21, 27, 43, 37, 43, 21, 35, 21, 35, 15, 21, 24, 27
2. Draw cumulative frequency table for the following table
C. I. 0-4 4-8 8-12 12-16 16-20
f 4 6 10 8 4
REFERENCES FOR FURTHER LEARNING OF THE SESSION
Reference Books:
1. William Feller, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications: Volume 1, Third Edition, 1968 by John
Wiley & Sons,Inc.
2. Richard A Johnson, Miller & Freund’s Probability and statistics for Engineers, PHI, New Delhi, 11th Edition (2011).
Sites and Web links:
1. * https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?kemh1=16-16 *
2. Notes: sections 1 to 1.3 of http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~rrw1/prob/prob-weber.pdf
3. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res - 6 -012 -introduction -to -probability - spring -
2018/91864c7642a58e216e8baa8fcb4a5cb5_MITRES_6_012S18_L01.pd f 9
4. https://www.probabilitycourse.com/chapter3/3_2_1_cdf.php
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_distribution_function
THANK YOU
Team – PS ODD SEM 2025-26
