Question

The median of an odd data set is the value in the________of the ordered list. If the number of values is even, then the median is the ________ of the two middle values.

Answer 1

The median is a measure of central tendency in a data set. It represents the middle value when the data is arranged in ascending or descending order.

For an odd number of data points, the median is simply the value that falls exactly in the middle of the ordered list. For example, if we have the data set [1, 3, 5, 7, 9], the median is 5 because it is the value at the center.

However, when the number of data points is even, there is no single middle value. In this case, the median is calculated by taking the average of the two middle values. For example, if we have the data set [2, 4, 6, 8], the two middle values are 4 and 6. The median is then (4 + 6) / 2 = 5.

So, in summary:

For an odd number of data points, the median is the value in the middle of the ordered list.

For an even number of data points, the median is the average of the two middle values.