Which statistic denotes the most frequently occurring value or category?

Which statistic denotes the most frequently occurring value or category?

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

Answer: (A)

The statistic being tested is the one that picks out the value that appears most often in the data. This is the mode. It applies to both numbers and categories, since it focuses on frequency rather than position or the average. For numeric data, the mode is the value with the highest frequency; for example, in a list where 7 appears more times than any other number, the mode is 7. For categorical data, the mode is the category that occurs most frequently. If two values tie for the highest frequency, there are two modes (bimodal); if several values share the top frequency, there are multiple modes as well. This differs from the mean, which is the average of all values, and the median, which is the middle value when the data are ordered. An outlier is a data point far from the others and is not a measure of frequency. So the mode is the best answer for “the most frequently occurring value or category.”

The statistic being tested is the one that picks out the value that appears most often in the data. This is the mode. It applies to both numbers and categories, since it focuses on frequency rather than position or the average. For numeric data, the mode is the value with the highest frequency; for example, in a list where 7 appears more times than any other number, the mode is 7. For categorical data, the mode is the category that occurs most frequently.

If two values tie for the highest frequency, there are two modes (bimodal); if several values share the top frequency, there are multiple modes as well. This differs from the mean, which is the average of all values, and the median, which is the middle value when the data are ordered. An outlier is a data point far from the others and is not a measure of frequency. So the mode is the best answer for “the most frequently occurring value or category.”