Final answer:
The best measure to describe the typical travel distance of a friend group would depend on the data distribution. The a. mean is used for symmetrical distributions without outliers, while the median is better for distributions with outliers. The mode represents the most frequent distance but is less commonly used for representing a typical value.
Step-by-step explanation:
To determine the typical travel distance of a friend group, the most suitable measure of central tendency would depend on the nature of the data. If the travel distances are symmetrical with no outliers, we can use the a. mean to find the average distance travelled.
However, if there are outliers or a skewed distribution, the median would be a more appropriate choice as it represents the middle value and is not affected by extreme values. The range can indicate the spread of travel distances, but it does not provide a typical value.
The mode identifies the most frequently occurring travel distance, which can be useful if the data is categorical or if there is a distance that is taken most often.
To calculate the mean, you add up all the travel distances and divide by the number of trips. The median is found by arranging the distances in ascending order and choosing the middle value (or averaging the two middle values if there is an even number of observations).
The range is the difference between the highest and lowest values. The mode is the value that appears most frequently.