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CAHSEE Math 2.1 Statistics, Data, and Probability I 178 Views


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Description:

Statistics, Data, and Probability I: Drill Set 2, Problem 1. What was the median number of days that the 30 students were absent?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

And here's a shmoopy question for ya...

00:06

In a class of 30 students, the following chart gives the number of students who had missed

00:11

class, and the number of days out of an entire month during which they had done so.

00:16

And here's the table or... uh... data set if we'd prefer to channel our inner nerd...

00:21

The median number of days that the 30 students were absent was... what?

00:26

Here are the potential answers:

00:33

So, this question takes a big dental pick to reallllly

00:36

dig in to see whether or not we understand the concept of Median.

00:41

Remember that Median is Latin for "middle"... or at least the "med" part is.

00:45

As in... medium.

00:46

The "ian" part is like "radian" which kinda sorta means... "measure".

00:50

So the question is really asking... what's the "middle measure" in this data set?

00:55

Well, the brute force way to do this problem is to just

00:57

lay out the numbers in front of us as we talk through them.

01:00

And here's what that looks like:

01:02

Now let's talk through the problem so we can understand what these evil testing people are asking...

01:10

9 students -- goody two shoes -- missed NO classes.

01:13

Not even on senior ditch day did they... ditch.

01:17

There were 11 students who missed just ONE day. They might have actually been sick.

01:22

There were a half dozen who missed 2 days, 2 party animals who missed 3 days,

01:27

1 derelict who missed 4 days, and another super-derelict who missed 5.

01:32

Now all you have to do is cross out the high and cross out the low.

01:36

And you're left with the middle two terms, which are... ones -- that is...

01:40

...term 15 and 16 which are the middle two terms in a data set of 30 elements.

01:46

You don't need to average them -- well, you could -- but that'd be pretty dull, as 1 and

01:49

1 averages to... uh, yeah... one.

01:51

So the answer is B. Or 1. It's the loneliest number.

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