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We’d like you to come down to the station. We need to shmoop you a few questions…
In the below data set, which is the greatest: the mean, median, or mode?
And here are the potential answers… OK so what is this question asking?
Well we just have to calculate each. And presumably know what each means. Like… we need to know
what mean… means.
Mean is just average. Add up the total and divide by the number of elements – yeah
each of these is an element.
So in this, case we have 10 elements. They total 540. Now divide by 10 and their mean
is… 54.
OK now let’s check out mode.
Mode is just the most frequently recurring element.
After careful microscopic inspection, we see that in only 1 case does an element repeat
It's the 55 – right here – so yep, 55 is the mode and it is the leader in the clubhouse
now, one larger than the mean.
OK now the median – the median is the middle number.
So there’s the old Shmoop Camp song that goes with medians – if ya know it, sing
it with us…
Throw out the high; throw out the low… throw out the high… throw out the low…
And uh yeah – do that a few times crossing out the highs and lows and what’s left in
the middle is … this.
It’s a tie of 55s. Well, normally we’d average these 2 center numbers but in this
case they are the same so... uh... not a lot of work to do here.
We’ll call it even at 55. Which ties with mode.
So the answer is both median and mode.
Choice E.
As in, “Element… ary school.”