Office workers were asked how long it took them,in minutes,to travel to work one morning.Here is the stem-and-leaf display.
Would you use the median or the mean to describe the centre of this distribution?
A)Mean,because the data are skewed to the right.
B)Mean,because the data are skewed to the left.
C)Mean,because the data are symmetric.
D)Median,because the data are skewed to the right.
E)Median,because the data are skewed to the left.

Question

Office workers were asked how long it took them,in minutes,to travel to work one morning.Here is the stem-and-leaf display. 
Would you use the median or the mean to describe the centre of this distribution?
A)Mean,because the data are skewed to the right. 
B)Mean,because the data are skewed to the left. 
C)Mean,because the data are symmetric. 
D)Median,because the data are skewed to the right. 
E)Median,because the data are skewed to the left.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The stem-and-leaf display suggests that the data are skewed to the right, with several outliers towards the upper end. In such cases, the mean is not a good choice to describe the center of the distribution because it can be exaggerated by the outliers. Instead, the median is a better choice because it is less affected by extreme values and provides a measure of the "typical" value in the middle of the data. Therefore, we should use the median to describe the center of this distribution.

Office Workers Were Asked How Long It Took Them,in Minutes,to