Question

In a football tournament, scores of a team in $12$ matches are as follows:

$9$	$0$	$1$	$2$	$3$	$2$
$3$	$4$	$6$	$1$	$7$	$3$

What is the median score of the team?

• A. $1$ and $2$
• B. $2$ and $3$
• C. $3$
• D. $2.5$

Answer 1

The correct option is C $3$

To find the median of the given data set, first we arrange the data points in ascending order.

$0$

$1$

$1$

$2$

$2$

$3$

$3$

$3$

$4$

$6$

$7$

$9$

$\underset{–}{\text{Note:}}$ Median is the mean of two central values of a data set with an even number of entries, arranged in order.

As the number of data points in the given data set is $12$, which is even, to calculate the median, we need to take the mean of two middle values ($3$ and $3$).

$0$

$1$

$1$

$2$

$2$

$\underset{–}{3}$

$\underset{–}{3}$

$3$

$4$

$6$

$7$

$9$

$\text{Median}=\text{Mean of}3\text{and}3=\frac{3+3}{2}=\frac{6}{2}=3$

$\therefore$ The median score of the team is $3$.

We can see that although the team's score can be as high as $9$, the score is usually around the median $3$.

Hence, for the given data set, median represents the best measure of central tendency.