Question bank / One-variable data: distributions and measures of center and spread
| Number of books | Frequency |
|---|---|
| 0 | 3 |
| 1 | 5 |
| 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 4 |
| 4 | 2 |
The frequency table summarizes the number of books each of students read over the summer. Which of the following is true about the mean and median of the data?
The mean is greater than the median.
The mean is less than the median.
The mean is equal to the median.
There is not enough information to compare the mean and the median.
Answer: B
With values, the median is the average of the th and th values. The cumulative counts are (for ), (through ), and (through ), so the th and th values are both and the median is . The mean is . Since , the mean is less than the median.
Choice D is tempting because the individual values aren't listed, but a frequency table gives enough information to find both measures exactly.
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