Question

Six students kept track of how much time they spent reading in a week. The mean was 6 hours. The mode was 7 hours. What might each of their times be?

Answer 1

`7,7,7,6,5,4`

Explanation:

So when we divide our numbers by how many numbers we have, we need to equal 6. Our most common number needs to be a 7.

So our mean is six, and we've got six people. This means when we add them all up, we need `6 xx 6 =36` total hours.
Lets say we've got three sevens, as this is our mode.
`36-(7xx3) = 15`
We need three numbers that add up to `15`, but as `7` is our mode, we cannot have three fives.
Therefore, we can use `6,4,5`.
Check:
`(7+7+7+6+5+4)/6 = 6`
Perfect!