A negative skewed distribution has tails pointing in which direction?

• A. Right
• B. Left
• C. Upward
• D. No tails

Answer: (B)

Skewness describes how a distribution is shaped in terms of symmetry. In a negatively skewed distribution, the longer tail extends to the left, toward smaller values. That means most of the data cluster on the right, while a few unusually low values pull the tail out to the left. So the tails point to the left.

The other directions don’t fit: a tail toward the right indicates positive skew; a tail upward isn’t how skewness is described since we talk about left-right tails, not vertical direction; and a distribution with no tails would imply symmetry or bounded data, not negative skew.