Oh well … the original title of this post was supposed to be something else, something that would guarantee to propel Miss Loi to the very top of Singapore’s Community Meta Blog in the blink of an eye. But this would also subsequently guarantee her eternal banishment from the said meta blog community.
So in the end, it was not meant to be.
As she sadly packs the bikini back into her bag, Miss Loi has to voice out that she’s feeling a little unwell today. As such, no stressful question this time but instead here’s a really simple but vital one that tests your knowledge of your … umm …vital statistics:
After a particularly disasterous exam, some students were interrogated by their form teacher on how many hours they had spent surfing the Internet the night before. The following table shows the results.
| No. of hours | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| No. of students | 6 | 4 | x | 2 |
- Write down the least possible value of x given that the mode is 2.
- Write down the greatest possible value of x given that the median is 1.
- If it was discovered that an additional two students has each spent 4 hours surfing the Internet on the previous day, find x if the mean is 1.5.
Now stop looking at your waist, hip or ahem!
Regardless on whether the students were lying or not, know your vital statistical definitions i.e. the THREE Ms of AVERAGES: Mode, Median and Mean, and you should be well on your way.
For the benefit of those who still can’t find their textbooks,
The mean of a set of n numbers x1, x2 … xn is 
(DUH!)
For grouped data, the mean is 
, and you’ll need to make sure you know which row in the table refers to the frequency before you proceed!
The median is the value of the middle term of a set of numbers arranged in order of magnitude. I.e. if there are n numbers, the middle term is the (
)th term. When there is an even number of terms, take the average of the two middle terms.
The mode of a set of numbers is the number with the highest frequency. It has no relation to French fashion, and once again, make sure you know which row refers to the frequency before you proceed.
This is one of those must-score Paper One questions! If you can’t even do this, you better see Miss Loi at her office where she’ll interrogate you on how many hours you spent surfing the Internet last night!
