How to Find Mean, Median, and Mode

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Mean (mean), median (middle value), and mode (value that occurs most often in a set) are values that are used frequently in mathematics and statistics. Although you can figure them out relatively easily, it is also very easy to confuse them. Read the following article that will help you calculate and distinguish each value in a set.

Table of Contents

Calculate Mean

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Sum all the terms in the set. Let’s say you have the set of numbers 2, 3, and 4. Add them together: 2 + 3 + 4 = 9.

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Count the number of terms in the set. In this case, you have 3 numbers.

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Divide the sum of the series by the number of terms. Now divide 9 by 3. 9/3 = 3. Mean, or the average of all the numbers in the above set, is 3. Remember that the result is not always an integer.

Calculate Median

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Sort all the numbers in the sequence from smallest to largest. Suppose we have the following numbers: 4, 2, 8, 1, 15. Let’s rearrange them in ascending order as follows: 1, 2, 4, 8, 15.

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Find the middle number of the set. How you do this depends on how many numbers you have are even or odd. Here’s how you can do it in both cases:

If odd, cross out the leftmost number, then the rightmost number, and repeat the operation. When you have a number left, this is the middle number. Assuming you have the numbers 4, 7, 8, 11, and 21, then 8 is the median value because it’s the middle number.
If even, cross out the numbers on either side except the two in the middle. The public together and divide by two to get the middle value. (If the two middle numbers are the same, that number is the median.) Assuming the sequence of numbers you have is 1, 2, 5, 3, 7, and 10, then the two middle numbers are 5 and 3. Add the sum of 5 and 3 to get 8 then divide this sum by 2 to get the middle value. is 4.

Calculate Mode

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Write down all the numbers in the set. Let’s say you have a sequence of numbers 2, 4, 5, 5, 4, and 5. This sequence has been sorted in ascending order.

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Find the number that appears most often. To make it easy to remember: “Mode is most.” In this example, the number 5 occurs most often, so it is the mode value. If two numbers occur most often, the set is “bimodal,” and if more than two numbers occur most often, the set is “multi-modal.”

Advice

Sorting the numbers from smallest to largest can help you find the median and mode.

Steps

Calculate Mean

Calculate Median

Calculate Mode

Advice

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