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Lesson 27: Intro to Median, Mode, and Range
This is an introduction to the very basic concepts of statistics. You will likely encounter test questions that see if you know what these words mean.
Don't forget to watch the embedded video clip for this lesson at the bottom of the page. Please be sure to read the embedded video information and disclaimer.
This is a topic that needs to be memorized. Let's take a look at a list of numbers which is ordered from smallest to largest: 7, 14, 28, 36, 59.
I'll start by defining range. We say that the range of these numbers is 52. The smallest number is 7, and the largest is 59. By subtracting 59 - 7, we can see that the highest number is 52 higher than the smallest. Remember, to find the range of a list of numbers, first put the list in order from smallest to largest, then subtract the smallest number from the largest number.
The median is defined as the "middle" number in an
ordered list of numbers. Here you can see that the median is 28.
This is easy to find if there are an odd number of items in the list,
such as this list which has 5. If there is an even number of
items, then the median will be the mean (average) of the middle two
numbers.
See Lesson 52 for more about
the mean.
The mode is defined as the number that occurs most frequently in a list. A typical list for a question would look something like this: 4, 6, 6, 12, 12, 12, 17, 26. The number 12 occurs the most frequently (3 times), so the mode is 12. If there is a tie for the number that occurs the most frequently, then each of the tied numbers is considered to be the mode. If each number appears exactly the same number of times, there is no mode.
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