Mean, Median and Mode Date: ________________________

Large Sets of Data

Corinne is organizing a Dance-a-thon to raise funds for the new Sports Centre.
She wants to determine the mean, median and mode of the ages of students
attending the current school dance. She surveyed 150 people at the dance and
organized the in the table below.

Age Frequency
From the table, Corinne can quickly determine
12 20
that the mode is 15. Could she simplify the data
13 51
further to find the median without ordering all
14 37
the numbers, and to find the mean without
15 20
adding 150 numbers?
16 14
17 8

Corinne could add 2 columns to the table.

Age Frequency Cumulative Product

Frequency Age x Frequency
12 20
13 51
14 37
15 20
16 14
17 8

To find the median in the list of 150 numbers, find the average of the 75th and 76th
numbers when arranged in order. Look at the cumulative frequency column in
the table: both the 75th and 76th numbers are in the row corresponding to an age
of ______________.

Find the mean by dividing the total of the values in the last column by the total
number of students at the dance:
The TI-83 can also be used to verify the mean and the median.
i) Enter the age in L1.
ii) Enter the frequency in L2.
iii) Enter 1-Var Stats L1, L2 then press ENTER

Mean, Median and Mode Date: ________________________

Large Sets of Data – Homework

1) The table shows the number of children, classified by age, attending 2

summer camps.

Havergal Day Camp: Biffy’s Summer Bonanza:

Age Frequency Cumulative Age Frequency Cumulative

Frequency Frequency
4 45 4 35
5 75 5 55
6 90 6 85
7 105 7 75

a) State the mode of the children’s ages for each camp.

b) State the mean and median age for each camp.
c) Verify your results using the TI-83.

2) The numbers below represent the number of items in a set of data. If the
data have been arranged in ascending order, state the number of the item
that would give the median.

a) 25 b) 100 c) 45 d) 32 e) 54 f) 63

Goals Frequency
3) Katherine tries to predict the outcome of hockey 1 5
games. To help with the predictions, Katherine 2 9
collected data about the number of goals scored by 3 14
the winning team in each of the last 120 games. 4 29
5 26
6 24
7 10
 Extend the table to include the cumulative frequency and product
columns. Use the data to find the mean, median, and mode for goals
scored per game. Verify your result using the TI-83.

4) The prizes in a lottery were as follows:

Prize ($) Frequency

Extend the table to include the
100 000 5
cumulative frequency and the product.
75 000 2
Use the table to find the mean, median
7 500 102
and mode value of the prizes. Which
750 102
measure seems best to describe the
25 53 000
average value of the prizes? Verify your
results using the TI-83.

5) a) The marks of 32 mathematic students on Test 1 are all multiples of 10

and are shown on the bar graph. What was the average (mean) mark of
the 32 students in the class?

Marks on Test 1

10
9
8
7
6
Number of
5
Students
4
3
2
1
0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Marks (out of 100)
b) After his first 6 tests, Paul had an average of 86. What will his average be if he
scores 100 on his next test?

c) Later in the year, Mary realizes that she needs a mark of 100 on the next test in
order to achieve an average of 90 for all her tests. However, if she gets a 70, her
average will be 87. After the next test, how many tests will she have written?

Selected Answers:

1b) MeanHDC = 5.81, Median HDC = 6 MeanBSB = 5.8, Median BSB = 6

2a) 13 b) 50.5 c) 23 d) 16.5 e) 27.5 f) 32
3) Mean = 4.575, median = 5, mode = 4
4) Mean = 52.93, Median = 25, Mode = $25