Question

(08.03)Jasper is using the following data samples to make a claim about the house values in his neighborhood:

House Value
A $150,000
B $175,000
C $200,000
D $167,000
E $2,500,000


Based on the data, should Jasper use the mean or the median to make an inference about the house values in his neighborhood?

Answer 1

He should use the median value to make an inference. The answer $2,500,000 is an outlier and will skew the data if you take the mean. It will make the mean significantly higher.

Answer 2

Median.

Explanation:

We have been given the house values in Jasper's neighborhood as:

House Value

A $150,000

B $175,000

C $200,000

D $167,000

E $2,500,000

We can see the value of house E is very high from other houses in Jasper's neighborhood. The value of house E will make the mean house value above the center of the data as House E is an outlier for our given data.

Since the median of a data set with an outlier is not affected by the value of outlier, therefore, Jasper should use the median to make an inference about the house values in his neighborhood.