Question

A student wants to report on the number of meals his friends buy each week. The collected data are below: 4 19 3 3 2 3 2 4 Which measure of center is most appropriate for this situation and what is its value?

Answer 1

Median and Mode.

Explanation:

The data could be represented in table form in ascending order as:

Number of meals Frequency

2 2

3 3

4 2

19 1`

On the basis of the data now we find the mean, median and mode:

Mean= average of the data

`Mean=(2* 2+3* 3+4* 2+19* 1)/(2+3+2+1)=(40)/(8)=5`

Hence mean is 5.

Median is the central tendency of the data

on looking at our data we see that the Median=3.

also the mode of the data is the entry corresponding to the highest entry.

Hence the highest frequency is 3 and the corresponding value is 3.

Hence, Mode=3

Hence, the most appropriate measure of center for this situation is :

Median and Mode.

Answer 2

The median or the mode which is three, but not the average because there is an outlier in the set, which is 19 and would skew the data higher than it should be.