Maria has the following scores on exams in her social studies class: 86, 75, 97, 58, 94, and 58.
a) find the mean, median, and the mode of the scores
b) should Maria’s social studies teacher use the mean, median, or mode of the exam scores to convince Maria that she needs to study more regularly for her exams
a)
Mean:
(86 + 75 + 97 + 58 + 94 + 58) / 6 = 78
Median:
In order, the scores are: 58, 58, 75, 86, 94, 97. The middle two scores are 86 and 94, so the median is (86 + 94) / 2 = 90.
Mode:
There are two scores that occur twice, which are 58 and 94. Therefore, there is no single mode for these scores.
b) The teacher should use the mean. Although Maria had a couple of low scores on the exams, her high scores brought up the average. This suggests that Maria has the capability to do well on exams, but her inconsistent studying habits are preventing her from doing so consistently.