Question

The weight of 10 students of a class in kg is given below.
40, 43, 43, 32, 50, 45, 37, 35, 42, 38
find the median

Answer 1

(1) You first order the given data in ascending order:

     [32, 35, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 43, 45, 50]

(2) And then number them as follows(once in ascending, then in descending):

     1     2     3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10

    32, 35, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 43, 45, 50

    10    9    8     7    6     5    4    3    2    1

As you can see, there is no definite middle number(the number in bold where the number above and below it is the same). There are two numbers-the ones under and above 5 and 6: 40 and 42

So, now to get the median you must add both of them and divide the result by 2 to get the middle of these numbers.

⇒40 + 42 =82

⇒82/2 = 41

ANSWER: the median of the students' weights is 41