Averages: Mean, Median, and Mode

Being able to utilize and be aware of averages can come in handy especially in heated topics such as tests, quizzes scores, etc that we may deal with on a daily basis. According to Epstein’s text, “the average is not the maximum or most likely depth. The average or mean of a collection of numbers is obtained by adding the numbers and then dividing by the number of items” (273).

For example,to retrieve the average or mean of a collection of numbers,
the average of 3,7,10,15,33 is calculated:
Add 3 + 7 + 10 + 15 + 33 = 68
Divide 68 by 5 = 13.6, the average

The median according to our text "is the midway mark: the same number of items above as below" (274). The median is the number in the middle.

For example, a graph could be helpful to show this, however let's just say
there are the numbers 5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40 that are in a line, when I took Algebra, one method we learned was by counting and crossing out the numbers until we got to the center. We would start w the far left and far right at the same time and cross them out. Then work our way until we got to the center. If there were two numbers left next to each other, we would add them and divide them by two.
However, based off our text, it states that "the distribution of marks should be a bell-shape, clustered around the median" (274).

The mode is "the number most often obtained" (274). So the mode is the number that appears the most.

For example,
5, 5, 10, 10, 10, 15, 20,30
The mode in this case would be 10 because it is shown 3 times when the other numbers were shown twice or once.