Question

Here is a list of numbers.

32 29 30 37 34
34 33 31
Tanya thinks that to work out the median, she simply needs to find
the middle number. So she says that “37" is the median for this list of numbers.
Tanya's answer is not correct.
a) Describe what is wrong with her method.
b) Work out the median of the numbers in the list.

Answer 1

Explanation:

32 29 30 37 34 34 33 31

a) Describe what is wrong with her method.

There two likely reasons why her answer is not correct;

- She did not arrange the numbers in order.

- The middle position belongs to two numbers, instead of finding the average she picked only one

b) Work out the median of the numbers in the list.

Arranging the numbers in ascending order;

29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 34, 37

32 and 33 are both in the middle. The average of both numbers is the median

Median = (32 + 33) / 2 = 65 / 2 = 32.5