Mean and mode
Be able to work out the mean of a few numbers and find the most common value.
Practise in Mattegrafen ↗ · Sannolikhet och statistikPrerequisites
Everyday explanation
The mean: add everything up and divide by how many there are.
Shoe sizes 36, 38, 38, 40: (36 + 38 + 38 + 40) ÷ 4 = 152 ÷ 4 = 38.
The mode: the most common value. Here 38 (it appears twice).
The mean is a way of answering «roughly how much is it?» with a single number.
Intuition
When does the mean mislead? Five people earn 20, 21, 22, 23 and 500 thousand. The mean is 117 — but nobody earns anywhere near that. A single extreme figure (an outlier) drags the mean away.
Then the median (the middle value when you sort them: 22) or the mode is more representative.
The same in AI: «the model answers in 0.4 seconds on average» can hide the fact that every twentieth answer takes 10 seconds. Always look at whether something sticks out.
Mastery means
- Works out the mean of a few numbers
- Finds the mode and says when it is more representative
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Sources
- Swedish Wikipedia — Mean (CC BY-SA 4.0) — CC BY-SA 4.0