Question

the average weight of oliver's five man basketball team was thought to be 60 kg. however, a mistake was made--one of the weights was written down wrong. once the mistake was found, and that one weight was changed to the right value of 80 kg, the correct average turned out to be 70 kg. what was the mistaken value? that is, what was written down at first instead of 80 kg.

Answer 1

The mistaken value written down instead of 80 kg is 50 kg.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the mistaken value, we can use the concept of average. We know that the average weight of the team was thought to be 60 kg, but after the mistake was found, the correct average turned out to be 70 kg once the weight of 80 kg was included. Since there are a total of 5 team members, the sum of their weights must have been 70 kg x 5 = 350 kg after the correction.

So, we can set up the equation: 60 kg x 5 + X = 350 kg, where X represents the mistaken value.

Solving this equation, we get

X = 350 kg - 60 kg x 5

= 350 kg - 300 kg

= 50 kg.

Therefore, the mistaken value that was initially written down instead of 80 kg is 50 kg.