Unit 5 Section 2 : Mean, Median, Mode

and Range
The mean, median and mode are types of average.
The range gives a measure of the spread of a set of data.

This section revises how to calculate these measures for a simple set of data.
It then goes on to look at how the measures can be calculated for a table of data.

Calculating the Mean, Median, Mode and Range for simple data

The table below shows how to calculate the mean, median, mode and range for two sets
of data.
Set A contains the numbers 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8 and Set B contains the numbers 2, 3, 3, 4, 6,
7.
Set A Set B
Measure 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7

The Mean Adding the numbers up Adding the numbers up

To find the mean, you gives:
need to add up all the 2+2+3+5+5+7+8=
data, and then divide 32
this total by the
number There are 7 values, so you
of values in the data. divide
the total by 7: 32 ÷ 7 =
4.57...
So the mean is 4.57 (2 d.p.)
gives:
2 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 7 = 25
There are 6 values, so you
divide
the total by 6: 25 ÷ 6 =
4.166...
So the mean is 4.17 (2 d.p.)

The Median The numbers in order: The numbers in order:

To find the median, 2 , 2 , 3 , (5) , 5 , 7 , 8 2 , 3 , (3 , 4) , 6 , 7
you
need to put the values The middle value is marked This time there are two
in order, then find the in values in
middle value. If there brackets, and it is 5. the middle. They have been
are put
two values in the So the median is 5 in brackets. The median is
middle found
then you find the mean by calculating the mean of
of these two values. these
two values: (3 + 4) ÷ 2 =
 3.5

So the median is 3.5

The Mode The data values: The data values:

The mode is the value 2,2,3,5,5,7,8 2,3,3,4,6,7
which appears the
most The values which appear This time there is only one
often in the data. It is most value
possible to have more often are 2 and 5. They both which appears most often -
than one mode if there appear more time than any the
is more than one value of the other data values. number 3. It appears more
which appears the times
most. So the modes are 2 and 5 than any of the other data
values.

So the mode is 3

The Range The data values: The data values:

To find the range, you 2,2,3,5,5,7,8 2,3,3,4,6,7
first need to find the
lowest and highest The lowest value is 2 and the The lowest value is 2 and the
values highest value is 8. highest value is 7.
in the data. The range Subtracting Subtracting
is the lowest from the highest the lowest from the highest
found by subtracting gives: 8 - 2 = 6 gives: 7 - 2 = 5
the
lowest value from the So the range is 6 So the range is 5
highest value.

Practice Question (for simple data)

Work out the mean, median, mode and range for the simple data set below,
then click on the button marked to see whether you are correct.

A data set contains these 12 values: 3, 5, 9, 4, 5, 11, 10, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10

(a) What is the mean?

(b) What is the median?

(c) What is the mode?

(d) What is the range?

Calculating the Mean, Median, Mode and Range for a table of data

Sometimes we are given the data in a table. The methods for calculating mean, median,
mode
and range are exactly the same, but we need to think carefully about how we carry them
out.
In this section we will use one set of data in a table and calculate each measure in turn.

Example
A dice was rolled 20 times. On each roll the dice shows a value from 1 to 6.
The results have been recorded in the table below:

Value Frequency The frequency is the number of times each value occured.
For example, the value 1 was rolled 3 times, the value 2 was
1 3 rolled 5 times and so on...
2 5 When we want to think about calculating the measures for this
3 2 data set, it can be helpful
to think about what the numbers would look like if we wrote
4 4 them out in a list:
1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6
5 3
6 3 We could just calculate the mean, median, mode and range from
this list of data, using
the methods described in the first part of this section. The
problem is that if there were
hundreds of values in the table then it would take a long time to
write out the list of data
and even longer to do the calculations. It would be better if we
could work directly from
the table to calculate the measures. The method for doing this is
shown below.

Finding the mean from a table of data

Value Frequency We know that if we write the example data in a list it looks like
this:
1 3 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6
2 5 Normally we would add up the data and divide the total by the
3 2 number of values:
 4 4 6+6+6 = 68
The number of values is 20, so the mean is 68 ÷ 20 = 3.4
5 3
We could have found these figures more easily! To get the total,
6 3 we have added
up 3 lots of "1", 5 lots of "2", 2 lots of "3", 4 lots of "4", 3 lot of
"5" and 3 lots of "6".
This is the same calculation as 3×1 + 5×2 + 2×3 + 4×4 + 3×5 +
3×6 = 68.
We have multiplied each value by its frequency and added up
the results to get the total
of all the values. We can also get the "number of values" more
easily by simply adding
up all the frequencies: 3 + 5 + 2 + 4 + 3 + 3 = 20

So how do we do this in a table? Value Frequency Value × Frequency

Firstly, you need to add an extra column 1 3 1×3=3
in the table:
This is where you multiply each value by 2 5 2 × 5 = 10
its frequency. For example, 3 2 3×2=6
the value 5 has a frequency of 3, so we
multiply 5 by 3 to get 15. 4 4 4 × 4 = 16

Secondly, you need to calculate two 5 3 5 × 3 = 15

important totals: 6 3 6 × 3 = 18
(1) add up the values in the frequency
column to find out the Totals 20 68
number of data values. In this case there
are 20 values.
(2) add up the values in the value ×
frequency column to find
out the total of all the data values. In this
case the total is 68.

Finally, you need to calculate the mean:

To do this, divide the total of all the data
values by the number of
data values. In this case you need to
divide 68 by 20, giving 3.4.

This method of calculating the mean for a table of data is exactly the same as the one
used with a list of data.
We have still added up all the values and divided by the number of values, but this way is
a bit more efficient!
Finding the median from a table of data

Value Frequency We know that there are 20 data values in our table. If you
imagine the 20 values
1 3 written out, there would be two values in the middle. These
would be the 10th and
2 5 11th values, and the median would be the mean of these two
3 2 "middle values".

4 4 From the list below we can see that the "middle values" are 3
and 4:
5 3 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6
6 3 The median would therefore be (3+4)÷2 = 3.5

So how do we do this from a table?

Because there are 20 values, we know that we need to find the
mean of the 10th and
11th values. To find these values we need to count through the
table until we get to them.

Look at the table. The value "1" has a frequency of 3, so the first three values in the table
are "1"s.
The value "2" has a frequency of 5, so the next 5 values are all "2"s. This takes us up to
the 8th value.
The next 2 values are "3"s, which takes us up to the 10th position in the data, so the 10th
value must be a "3".
The next 4 values are "4"s, so the 11th value must be a "4".

We can now see that the 10th and 11th values are a "3" and a "4", so the median is 3.5.

Finding the mode and range from a table of data

Finding the mode is much easier from a table, because the

Value Frequency
frequency column
1 3 tells us how many times each value occured. We can find the
value which
2 5 occured the most often by looking for the value with the highest
frequency.
3 2
In this case we can see that the value with the highest frequency
4 4 is "2".
The mode of this set of data is therefore 2
5 3
Finding the range is also easy from a table. To find the highest
6 3
and lowest data
 values, you simply look for the highest and lowest values in the
values column.
In this case the lowest value is "1" and the highest value is "6",
and 6 - 1 = 5.
The range of this set of data is therefore 5
Practice Question (for data in a table)
Work out the each of the measures, then click on the button marked to see
whether you are correct.
You can fill in the boxes to help you with your
Valu Freque Value × Frequ working but they will not be marked.
e ncy ency
30 couples were asked how many children they
0 3 have.
The results are shown in the table on the left.
1 7
(a) What is the mean number of children?
2 10

3 8 (b) What is the median number of children?

4 1
(c) What is the mode?
5 1

Tota
ls (d) What is the range?

Exercises
Work out the answers to the questions below and fill in the boxes. Click on the
button to find out whether you have answered correctly. If you are right then
will appear and you should move on to the next question. If appears then
your answer is wrong. Click on to clear your original answer and have
another go. If you can't work out the right answer then click on to see the
answer.
You may find it helpful to have pencil and paper to do workings for these questions.
Question 1
Calculate the mean, median, mode and range for each set of data below:
(a) 3, 6, 3, 7, 4, 3, 9 Mean =

Median =

Mode =

Range =

(b) 11, 10, 12, 12, 9, 10, 14, 12, Mean =

9
Median =

Mode =

Range =

(c) 2, 9, 7, 3, 5, 5, 6, 5, 4, 9 Mean =

Median =

Mode =

Range =

Question 2
Several seaside hotels were rated between "no stars" and "five stars" by the tourist board.
The table below shows how many hotels got each number of stars.
Work out the mean number of stars by filling in the gaps in the table below.
You can check your answers to each part as you go along.

Stars Frequency Stars × Frequency What is the mean number of

stars?
0 2 stars
 1 6

2 8

3 3

4 0

5 1

Totals

Question 3
The price of a litre of petrol was recorded at several garages, and the results are displayed
in the table below.
Calculate:
Price Frequency (a) the mean
74p 1 pence
75p 2
(b) the median
76p 8 pence
77p 10
(c) the mode
78p 2
pence
79p 1
(d) the range
80p 1
pence
Question 4
Professor Baker keeps a record of his golf scores, as shown in the table below:
Score Frequency Calculate his mean score:
70 3
71 4
72 4
 73 4
74 3
75 2
Question 5
A class collected data on their shoe sizes and presented it in the table below:
Calculate:
Shoe Size Frequency (a) the mean
3 2
4 7 (b) the median

5 6
6 5 (c) the mode

7 3
8 2 (d) the range

You have now completed Unit 5 Section 2

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