Choose the Best of Central Tendency

Which measure of center should you use for the following data distribution?

• mean

• median

True or False: The mean is the best measure of central tendency to describe symmetric data sets.

• True

• False

When should you use median?

• When you have no outliers

• You have outliers but no big gaps in the data set

• The repeated numbers make up most of the data

• When the numbers are not in order

The heights of the starting 5 players on a basketball team are 60 inches, 67 inches, 64 inches, and 65 inches.  If the mean or balance point of the players is 65, what is the height of the 5th player?

• 70

• 69

• 61

• 68

A survey asked 6th graders their favorite lunch and got the following results:

Pizza: 150

Nachos: 75

Spaghetti: 25

What is the best measure of central tendency to represent this data?

• Mean

• Median

• Mode

• Range

Harley surveyed his classmates about how many siblings they have and got the following data: 0, 1, 3, 5, 4, 2, 2, 9, 1, 2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3 Which measure is best measure of center of the data?

• Mean

• Median

• Mode

• Range

Find the median of these numbers:
4, 2, 7, 4, 3

• 2

• 5

• 7

• 4

Which measure of central tendency best represents this set of data:
3, 18, 2, 0, 1, 0, 2, 1

• Mean

• Median

• Mode

• Range

Which measure of central tendency best represents this set of data:
3, 4, 5, 4, 5

• Mean

• Median

• Mode

• Range

Kayte took a sample of 50 pieces of data.  She added up all of the pieces of data and then divided by 50.  What measure of center is she working on?

• Mean

• Median

• Mode

• Range