How can we use the concept:
Let’s suppose that I am interested in how many pets my classmates have. I’ll ask 10 randomly selected students in the 6th grade class how many pets they have and then record that information. Here are the results:
Let’s suppose that I am interested in how many pets my classmates have. I’ll ask 10 randomly selected students in the 6th grade class how many pets they have and then record that information. Here are the results:
1, 0, 1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 1, 0, 1
As I examine this list, I can see that “1” occurs most often. This is the mode and tells me that most of my classmates have 1 pet.
As I examine this list, I can see that “1” occurs most often. This is the mode and tells me that most of my classmates have 1 pet.
Sample Math Problems
1. Find the mode of the following set of data:
12, 17, 4, 25, 17, 9, 12, 22
Solution:
The mode is the value that occurs the most. In this case, both 12 and 17 occur the most (two times each). So there are two modes: 12 and 17
2. Susie asked 8 people how many pizza rolls they usually eat. Here are her results:
4, 9, 9, 5, 4, 10, 9, 6
4, 9, 9, 5, 4, 10, 9, 6
What is the mode of the data?
Solution:
The mode is the value that occurs the most. We can see that there are two 4s, one 5, one 6, three 9s, and one 10. Therefore 9 is the mode because it occurs the most.
3. A dentist analyzed the charts of 20 of his patients to see how many fillings they’d had as a child. Her data is summarized in the following table:
- #ofFillings
- #ofPatients
- 0
- 4
- 1
- 3
- 2
- 9
- 3
- 2
- 4ormore
- 2
Solution:
According to this data set, how many fillings do most of her patients receive during childhood?
Since the question asks how many fillings most patients received, we are looking for the mode of the data. The data is given in a frequency table. From this table, we understand that if we were to list out the data individually, it would look like this:
0,0,0,0,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,4,4
And we can see that 2 is the number that occurs the most. So 2 is the mode! In answer to the original question, most patients receive 2 fillings during childhood.
4. Which graph has 2 modes? (Note: I’d like the vertical axis on the graphs to be labeled frequency but I couldn’t seem to get it to do that.)
The mode is the value that occurs the most. So we need to first read the graphs to see what value is occurring most often. In the first graph, we can see that zero occurs 2 times, one occurs 3 times, two occurs 1 time, four occurs 2 times, and five occurs 3 times. In the second graph, zero occurs 2 times, one occurs 4 times, three occurs 2 times, and five occurs 1 time. In the first graph, the modes would be one and five because they both occur 3 times, which is the most. In the second graph, the mode is one because it occurs the most times - 4. So the answer is the first graph has 2 modes.
