Question

Five students reported the amount of time (in minutes) they spent studying for a biology exam the night before the test. The mean of the reported times is 45 minutes and the standard deviation is 10 minutes.

A 6th student reported that they studied for 50 minutes. Without doing any calculations, how would the addition of this student to the data set affect the value of the mean? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

Adding the 6th student who studied for 50 minutes would increase the value of the mean.

Step-by-step explanation:

Adding the 6th student who studied for 50 minutes to the data set would increase the value of the mean. This is because the mean is calculated by summing all the values and dividing by the number of values. Since 50 is greater than the current mean of 45, adding the 50 would increase the sum and therefore increase the mean.