Which term is the value that appears most frequently in a data set?

Which term is the value that appears most frequently in a data set?

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

Answer: (C)

The value that appears most frequently in a data set is called the mode. It shows which value is most common by counting how often each value occurs. For example, in the numbers 65, 70, 70, 82, 90, the score 70 appears twice while the others appear once, so the mode is 70. This differs from the mean, which is the average of all values; the median, the middle value when the data are ordered; and the range, the difference between the largest and smallest values. Some data sets can have more than one mode if multiple values occur with the same highest frequency, or no mode if all values occur equally often.

The value that appears most frequently in a data set is called the mode. It shows which value is most common by counting how often each value occurs. For example, in the numbers 65, 70, 70, 82, 90, the score 70 appears twice while the others appear once, so the mode is 70. This differs from the mean, which is the average of all values; the median, the middle value when the data are ordered; and the range, the difference between the largest and smallest values. Some data sets can have more than one mode if multiple values occur with the same highest frequency, or no mode if all values occur equally often.