Question

the mean of the age swimmers on the team is 10 what does a large mad tell you

Answer 1

The mean absolute deviation is the "average" of the "positive distances" of each point from the mean.

The larger the MAD, the greater variability there is in the data (the data is more spread out).

The MAD helps determine whether the set's mean is a useful indicator of the values within the set.
The larger the MAD, the less relevant is the mean as an indicator of the values within the set.


Let's compare Sherlock's data set with that belonging to Watson 
to see what the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) tells us.