Which term describes the middle value when data are ordered?

• A. Mean
• B. Mode
• C. Range
• D. Median

Answer: (D)

The middle value when data are ordered is called the median. To find it, line the numbers up from smallest to largest and pick the value exactly in the center. If there’s an even number of data points, you take the average of the two central values. This makes the median a good representation of the dataset’s center, especially when there are outliers or skewed data, because it isn’t pulled toward extreme values like the mean can be. For example, in an ordered set 2, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, the middle values are 9 and 10, so the median is 9.5. In contrast, the mean averages all values, the mode is the most frequent value, and the range is simply max minus min.