Question

Hunter recorded the mass of each rock in his collection. A dot plot has a horizontal axis labeled mass, in grams, marked from 35 to 45, in increments of 1. The number of dots above each value is as follows: 35, 2; 38, 2; 39, 2; 41, 1; 42, 1; 43, 2; 44, 1; 45, 1. Find the median mass.

Answer 1

The median mass of Hunter's rock collection is calculated by ordering the mass values and finding the middle point, which is 39 grams.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student is attempting to find the median mass of rocks in a collection, based on data presented in a dot plot. To find the median, we must first list all the mass values in numerical order. Given the frequencies for each mass, the ordered list of masses is: 35, 35, 38, 38, 39, 39, 41, 42, 43, 43, 44, 45. Since there are 12 data points, the median will be the average of the 6th and 7th values in the ordered list. The 6th and 7th values are both 39, so the median mass of Hunter's rock collection is 39 grams.