A distribution of raw scores is positively skewed. You want to transform it so that it is normally distributed. Your friend, who fancies herself a statistics whiz, advises you to transform the raw scores to z scores; that the z scores will be normally distributed. You should _________.
A) ignore the advice because your friend flunked her last statistics test
B) ignore the advice because z distributions have the same shape as the raw scores.
C) take the advice because z distributions are always normally distributed
D) take the advice because z distributions are usually normally distributed

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Transforming raw scores to z scores will not change the shape of the distribution, it only standardizes the distribution by converting it to a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. In other words, the z-score distribution will have the same shape as the raw score distribution but with different units of measurement. Therefore, option B is the correct answer.

A Distribution of Raw Scores Is Positively Skewed