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Understanding Mean, Median and Mode: Activity 1 of 3

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Mean, median, and mode help us find what’s typical in a set of data. For example, they help us find the typical age of a child on a soccer team or the typical income in a neighborhood.

It’s important to choose the type of average that works best for the data you’re analyzing.

Use mean to get a general picture of a set of data (like how long it takes in general to drive to work); the mean works best when the numbers don’t vary too much from least to greatest.

Use median to find the middle number in a set of data (like the middle income in a company).

Use mode to find the most common number in a set of data (like the most common age on a team).

Here are the incomes for a Stanton neighborhood with seven families:

$33,000; $32,000; $21,000; $34,000; $142,000; $31,000; $43,000

We want to find the middle figure among the incomes in the neighborhood, so we must ask: what is the MEDIAN income?

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