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CAHSEE 1.2 Passage Drill. Which of these sentences from the story best illustrates the sensitive side of the narrator's nature?
CAHSEE 1.3 Passage Drill. Which of the following is the best way to express the meaning of the word alumni in this sentence?
CAHSEE 1.4 Passage Drill. What does the use of flashbacks accomplish in "Graduation"?
CAHSEE Math 1.2 Statistics, Data, and Probability I 198 Views
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Description:
Statistics, Data, and Probability I: Drill Set 1, Problem 2. What is the median length of these writing utensils?
Transcript
- 00:04
Here's the boring, unshmoopily-voiced question...
- 00:06
The lengths, in centimeters, of ten different types of pencils and pens are listed below.
- 00:13
What is the median length of these writing utensils?
- 00:17
Here are the potential answers.
- 00:24
So... what is this question really asking?
Full Transcript
- 00:26
Well, it's really two things.
- 00:28
First, it's testing our vocabulary... do we know what a median is?
- 00:33
Uh, no, that's a mediUM.
- 00:34
A median is the center value of a data set.
- 00:39
That is, if we took all our numbers and organized them low to high...
- 00:42
...and started throwing out one high for every low
- 00:45
'til we were left with only the middle number...
- 00:48
we would have our median.
- 00:51
Okay... first we have to order the numbers.
- 00:54
- 00:54
We want to organize our data set in terms of length from shortest to longest.
- 00:59
Cross out the high, cross out the low... Cross out the high, cross out the low...
- 01:06
Kind of sounds like a camp song we'd sing around the lake, no?
- 01:09
Anyway, when we're done crossing out numbers, we're left with 13.6 and 14 in the middle.
- 01:14
We're too competitive to settle for a tie.
- 01:17
Our median has to have a single answer.
- 01:20
But... freeze... and go back to the answer set offered to us.
- 01:24
Note that 14 isn't even listed as a choice.
- 01:28
So even if we didn't know that we're supposed to average the numbers,
- 01:32
we know that we don't just pick... any ol' number.
- 01:35
But also notice that 13.6 is there as a choice.
- 01:38
Ooh... curveball.
- 01:39
Let's not get hit in the head by it. The answer isn't 13.6.
- 01:44
To get the median, we have to average the remaining 2 numbers.
- 01:49
Average? Uh oh, what does that mean?
- 01:51
All we have to do is add our two middles numbers...
- 01:54
in this case we add 14 and 13.6 to get 27.6...
- 01:58
...then, since there are 2 numbers, we divide 27.6 by 2 to get the magic number... 13.8.
- 02:05
And voila!
- 02:05
There is our answer...
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