Mode Examples

The students' test scores are

77, 80, 77, 64, 50, 84, 90, 77.

What is the mode of the test scores?

Let's order the scores to make them easier to look at:

50, 64, 77, 77, 77, 80, 84, 90.

The most frequently occurring number in this list is 77, so 77 is the mode of the test scores. Getting a 77 must have been fashionable that day (although at Shmoop we think getting 100 is more fashionable, but that's just us).

The high temperatures in a very cold town in Canada over one week (in degrees Fahrenheit) were

-20, 0, -5, 0, 0, 1, 0.

What is the mode of the temperatures?

Since 0 occurs more than any other number in the list, 0 is the mode. Boy, we bet people were sweatin' on that 1-degree day.

PS, it's possible for a list of values to have multiple modes, or no modes at all.