Final answer:
To calculate the mean of the numbers 2, 8, 1, and 86, you first add them to get a sum of 97, then divide that by the number of terms, 4, resulting in a mean of 24.25.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks us to find the mean of the numbers 2, 8, 1, and 86 and to determine the sum of these numbers. To calculate the mean, we add all the numbers and then divide that sum by the quantity of numbers. The sum is 2 + 8 + 1 + 86 = 97. As there are 4 numbers, the mean would be 97 divided by 4, which gives 24.25.
Finding the mean is an essential concept in statistics and can often be represented graphically, for example via a dot plot; however, in this straightforward calculation, we use basic arithmetic.