5.5 Averages and Probability

Calculate the Mean of a Set of Numbers

The mean is often called the arithmetic average. It is computed by dividing the sum of the values by the number of values. Students want to know the mean of their test scores. Climatologists report that the mean temperature has, or has not, changed. City planners are interested in the mean household size.

Suppose Ethan’s first three test scores were $85,88,\text{and}94.$ To find the mean score, he would add them and divide by $3.$

His mean test score is $89$ points.

Did you notice that in the last example, while all the numbers were whole numbers, the mean was $59.5,$ a number with one decimal place? It is customary to report the mean to one more decimal place than the original numbers. In the next example, all the numbers represent money, and it will make sense to report the mean in dollars and cents.

Find the Median of a Set of Numbers

When Ann, Bianca, Dora, Eve, and Francine sing together on stage, they line up in order of their heights. Their heights, in inches, are shown in Table 5.6.

Dora is in the middle of the group. Her height, $65\text{″},$ is the median of the girls’ heights. Half of the heights are less than or equal to Dora’s height, and half are greater than or equal. The median is the middle value.

What if Carmen, the pianist, joins the singing group on stage? Carmen is $62$ inches tall, so she fits in the height order between Bianca and Dora. Now the data set looks like this:

There is no single middle value. The heights of the six girls can be divided into two equal parts.

Statisticians have agreed that in cases like this the median is the mean of the two values closest to the middle. So the median is the mean of $62\text{and}65,\frac{62+65}{2}.$ The median height is $63.5$ inches.

Notice that when the number of girls was $5,$ the median was the third height, but when the number of girls was $6,$ the median was the mean of the third and fourth heights. In general, when the number of values is odd, the median will be the one value in the middle, but when the number is even, the median is the mean of the two middle values.

Example 5.52

Find the median of $12,13,19,9,11,15,\text{and}18.$

Solution

List the numbers in order from smallest to largest.	9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 19
Count how many numbers are in the set. Call this $n$.	$n=7$
Is $n$ odd or even?	odd
The median is the middle value.
The middle is the number in the 4th position.	So the median of the data is 13.

Example 5.53

Kristen received the following scores on her weekly math quizzes:

$83,79,85,86,92,100,76,90,88,\text{and}64.$ Find her median score.

Solution

Find the median of 83, 79, 85, 86, 92, 100, 76, 90, 88, and 64.
List the numbers in order from smallest to largest.	64, 76, 79, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92, 100
Count the number of data values in the set. Call this $\mathrm{n.}$	$n=10$
Is $n$ odd or even?	even
The median is the mean of the two middle values, the 5th and 6th numbers.
Find the mean of 85 and 86.	$\text{mean}=\frac{85+86}{2}$
	$\text{mean}=85.5$
	Kristen's median score is 85.5.

Identify the Mode of a Set of Numbers

The average is one number in a set of numbers that is somehow typical of the whole set of numbers. The mean and median are both often called the average. Yes, it can be confusing when the word average refers to two different numbers, the mean and the median! In fact, there is a third number that is also an average. This average is the mode. The mode of a set of numbers is the number that occurs the most. The frequency, is the number of times a number occurs. So the mode of a set of numbers is the number with the highest frequency.

Suppose Jolene kept track of the number of miles she ran since the start of the month, as shown in Figure 5.7.

Figure 5.7

If we list the numbers in order it is easier to identify the one with the highest frequency.

Jolene ran $8$ miles three times, and every other distance is listed only once. So the mode of the data is $8$ miles.

Example 5.54

The ages of students in a college math class are listed below. Identify the mode.

$18,18,18,18,19,19,19,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,21,21,22,22,22,22,22,23,24,24,25,29,30,40,44$

Solution

The ages are already listed in order. We will make a table of frequencies to help identify the age with the highest frequency.

Now look for the highest frequency. The highest frequency is $7,$ which corresponds to the age $20.$ So the mode of the ages in this class is $20$ years.

Example 5.55

The data lists the heights (in inches) of students in a statistics class. Identify the mode.

$56$	$61$	$63$	$64$	$65$	$66$	$67$	$67$
$60$	$62$	$63$	$64$	$65$	$66$	$67$	$70$
$60$	$63$	$63$	$64$	$66$	$66$	$67$	$74$
$61$	$63$	$64$	$65$	$66$	$67$	$67$

Solution

List each number with its frequency.

Now look for the highest frequency. The highest frequency is $6,$ which corresponds to the height $67$ inches. So the mode of this set of heights is $67$ inches.

Some data sets do not have a mode because no value appears more than any other. And some data sets have more than one mode. In a given set, if two or more data values have the same highest frequency, we say they are all modes.

Use the Basic Definition of Probability

The probability of an event tells us how likely that event is to occur. We usually write probabilities as fractions or decimals.

For example, picture a fruit bowl that contains five pieces of fruit - three bananas and two apples.

If you want to choose one piece of fruit to eat for a snack and don’t care what it is, there is a $\frac{3}{5}$ probability you will choose a banana, because there are three bananas out of the total of five pieces of fruit. The probability of an event is the number of favorable outcomes divided by the total number of outcomes.

Converting the fraction $\frac{3}{5}$ to a decimal, we would say there is a $0.6$ probability of choosing a banana.

This basic definition of probability assumes that all the outcomes are equally likely to occur. If you study probabilities in a later math class, you’ll learn about several other ways to calculate probabilities.