ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

SKEW

Imagine you have a toy car that you like to play with. Now, imagine that the car is a bit crooked, some parts are heavier on one side, so when you push the car, it doesn't go straight, instead it moves to one side. This is a bit like what skew means.

Skew is like a crookedness in a set of numbers, like when we count the number of kids in a classroom, and some kids are older or taller than others. It causes the numbers to lean towards one side, like the toy car.

For instance, if we have a set of numbers like: 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10. The mean (average) of these numbers is 5.4. But, if we add a larger number like 50 to the set like this: 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 50, the mean becomes 15.5, which is much bigger than before. This is what we call a skew to the right, because the numbers are leaning to the right, towards the bigger number.

On the other hand, if we remove the number 2 from the first set of numbers, we will have 3, 5, 7, 10. The mean of these numbers is 6.25, which is less than before. This is what we call a skew to the left, because the numbers are leaning towards the smaller numbers.

In summary, skew is when the numbers of a set lean towards one side or the other, creating a crookedness in the distribution of the data.
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