Notes on the merits and Demerits of Range

Merits of Range:

(1) Range is rigidly defined.

(2) It is simple to understand and easy to calculate. It can be found by mere inspection.

(3) It can be calculated from extreme values only. So we need not know the details of the series to calculate the range.

Demerits:

(1) It is not representative since it is not based on all the observations of the series.

(2) It is not capable of further algebraic treatment.

(3) In case of open-end classes range cannot be determined exactly.

(4) It is not a stable measure of dispersion and is very much affected by the fluctuations of sampling. This is because it does not take into account all the sample items but only the extreme items of the sample.