With respect to measures of central tendencies — mean, median, and mode —…

2016

With respect to measures of central tendencies — mean, median, and mode — which one of the following is incorrect?

  1. A.

    Mode is used when the measure of central tendency is the most typical value.

  2. B.

    Median is used when the measure of central tendency having the greatest stability is wanted.

  3. C.

    Mean is used when other statistics are to be computed later.

  4. D.

    Mode is used when a quick and approximate measure of central tendency is wanted.

Attempted by 77 students.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A

Incorrect statement identified: The statement "Mode is used when the measure of central tendency is the most typical value."

  • Mode: The mode is the value that occurs most frequently. It is useful for identifying the most common category in categorical data, and for quick, rough estimates. It is not necessarily a "typical" or central value for numeric data, and a dataset can have multiple modes or none that are informative.

  • Mean: The mean is the arithmetic average and is preferred when you plan further statistical calculations (for example, variance, standard deviation, and many parametric tests) because of its algebraic properties. It is sensitive to outliers and skewness.

  • Median: The median is the middle value in ordered data and is a robust (stable) measure of central tendency when the distribution is skewed or contains outliers. Use it for incomes, house prices, or other skewed numerical data.

  • Quick estimate and data type guidance: Mode can give a quick approximate sense of the most common category; mean is best for further numeric computation; median is best for stability with skewed distributions.

Reason the first statement is incorrect: 'Most typical' is ambiguous and implies representativeness rather than frequency. The mode measures frequency, not how well a value represents the dataset as a whole.

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