Question

The following data set is sorted in ascending order:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105
The median of this data is 6 and the mean is 48.7. Which of these two measures will change the most if the outlier -600 is added to the list?
A. The median
B. The mean
C. Cannot be determined

Answer 1

B. mean

Answer 2

If you add -600 to the list and you sort it, you'll get


-600, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105


what's the mean and median now?

Answer 3

Thanks!

Answer 4

You already have the answer, but here's why it's the mean:


When adding -600 to the list, the median goes from 6 to 5.5


When adding -600 to the list, the mean goes from 48.727 to -5.3333


So we can see that the mean changes the most of the two.

Answer 5

In general, adding a very large outlier will greatly affect the mean.