26 November 2013
Put simply (I hope)... if you map certain things out, you will find that most people fall within a certain range. Let's say you were looking at number of hours of tv watched per week. The greatest percentage of people will probably fall within a similar range (say, 15-20 hours weekly) the further out you get from the norm (say 1 or 50 hours weekly) the fewer people will fall into that category. So, if you made a graph.. it would be low at the far edge (0) gradually curve upwards until it reaches its apex at the place most people fall (15-20) then gradually curve back downward towards the other extreme (50). The general shape of this line resembles the outline of a bell, hence the name "bell curve"