Statistics interview question: How do percentiles and quartiles differ?

If you are studying statistics, you will need to know the the measures of dispersion, which include:-

1. Range,
2. Percentile,
3. Quartile,
4. Variance, and
5. Standard deviation.

You may be asked to explain to the interviewer how percentiles and quartiles differ, and the way that you answer the question could depend on whether or not you get the job that you are interviewing for.

Before answering the question, it is important to delve into exactly what percentile and quartiles are:-

Percentile

In statistics, the percentile is a term that describes how a value compares to other values from the same set. The percentile is commonly expressed as the percentage of values in a set of data values that fall below a given value.

Excel has the function PERCENTILE, which can be used to find a specific percentile of an array of data. In the example below, the formula will give the 50% value of the referenced array of data:-