Question

Why do we use averages are there any limitation to their use illustrate with an example?

Answer 1

we use averages to get a short,rough and instant idea of a large data.

but averages fail to give an exact and individual idea

for example in a class of 30 students the average marks in mathematics out of 100 marks is 80 but in the same class there are students getting full marks and even getting zero but average marks of all of them is 80

Answer 2

We use averages because they are useful for comparing differing quantities of the same category.

For example, to compute the per capita income of a country, averages have to be used because there are differences in the incomes of diverse people. However, there are limitations to the use of averages. This does not show the distribution of thing between people. For an example, suppose in a country, the annual income of a rickshaw puller is Rs 8,000 while an MNC employee earns an annual package of Rs 12,00,000. The average income of this country, therefore, will be Rs 6,05,000. Here actual income or status remains unknown. One can clearly consider this as a rich country thereby ignoring the income disparity between two individuals. Averages are useful for comparison, they also hide disparities.