What is the mean of a group of measurements?

• A. The median of the data set
• B. The mathematical average of all the measurements
• C. The mode of the data set
• D. The range of the data set

Answer: (B)

The mean is a measure of central tendency found by summing all measurements and dividing by how many there are. It represents the mathematical average of the data, giving a single value that reflects the overall level of the group. This makes it the best answer because it incorporates every measurement rather than relying on just one or a subset. The median is the middle value when the data are ordered, which can differ in skewed distributions and isn’t influenced by every single measurement. The mode is the most frequent value, which might not exist or might not represent the data well. The range is the difference between the largest and smallest values, describing spread rather than a central value. In practice, the mean is widely used to summarize numerical measurements, though it can be affected by outliers.