# What is the difference between the mean, median, and mode?

Oct 29, 2015

Mean is the average of given sets of numbers. You should add the numbers up then divide by the number of the numbers.

Median is the number in the middle when you order the numbers in an ascending order. If there are two numbers in the middle, you should take the average of those two numbers.

Mode is the number which is repeated the most in the set.

For example, let's say we have a set of $8 , 4 , 1 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 3 , 1$

Mean is: $8 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 4 + 1 + 3 + 1 + = 24$ and $\frac{24}{8} = 3$

Median is $\frac{2 + 3}{2} = 2.5$ (list the numbers in an ascending orders as $1 , 1 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 4 , 8$ and the medians are $2$ and $3$)

Mode is $1$ because it is seen the most in the set.

You can find more examples on http://www.purplemath.com/modules/meanmode.htm

Nov 3, 2015

Each one is a measure of the central tendency but the procedure for getting these values differs.

#### Explanation:

Let's suppose we are given 25 numbers.

The mean is obtained by adding all the numbers and dividing the total by 25.

For getting the median, we first arrange the 25 numbers in ascending or descending order and then pick up the middle most value. (in this case, it is the 13th value).

For finding the mode, we find whether any number appears more than once.
The number which appears most is the mode. If there are other numbers that repeat to the same level, there may be more that one mode. A set could be bimodal or trimodal.