Question

Which is the most frequent value in a data set?
A) Mean
B) Mode
C) Range
D) Median

Answer 1

Hint: In this question, we have been asked the name for the most frequent value in a data set and we have been given certain options to choose the answer. Read and understand about each of the given terms and then decide which of the given options has the exact or nearby meaning as given in the question.

Complete step-by-step solution:
We have been asked to name that which occurs most frequently in a data set. But before answering the question, let us know about each of the given options in detail.
A) Mean – There are several types of means – arithmetic mean, geometric mean or harmonic mean. But when we say mean, we are generally talking about arithmetic mean. It is commonly known as ‘average’. It is widely used for many purposes. It is calculated by adding all the observations and dividing it by number of observations.
B) Mode – Mode is that number which occurs most of it is that number that is repeated more often than any other number in the data set. It has the highest frequency. For example: mode of 3, 4, 5, 4, 6, 4, 7, 4, 8, and 4 is 4 because it occurs 5 times whereas every other number occurs just once.
C) Range – It is the difference between the highest and the lowest value of the data. It tells us how scattered and reliable the data is. If range is less, then data is less scattered and more reliable. On the other hand, if range is more, data is more scattered and less reliable.
D) Median – It is a positional value as it determines the middle most observation of the data. For this, the data has to arrange in either increasing or decreasing order. It does not define the data set on a whole.
Hence, as we can look, mode is the value that occurs the most.

$\therefore$ Our answer is option B) Mode.

Note: We have to mind that, in statistics the mode is the most commonly observed value in a set of data. For the normal distribution, the mode is also the same value as the mean and median. In many cases, the model value will differ from the average value in the data.
The mean, median and mode together are called measures of central tendency. Mean is considered as the best measure of central tendency as it takes in consideration the entire data set. On the other hand, median and mode are not based on all the values.