Question number
| High school | Year | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |
| Foothill | 87 | 80 | 75 | 76 | 70 |
| Valley | 44 | 54 | 65 | 76 | 82 |
| Total | 131 | 134 | 140 | 152 | 152 |
The table above shows the number of students from two different high schools who completed summer internships in each of five years. No student attended both schools. Which of the following statements are true about the number of students who completed summer internships for the 5 years shown?
- The mean number from Foothill High School is greater than the mean number from Valley High School.
- The median number from Foothill High School is greater than the median number from Valley High School.
we only
Iwe only
we and II
Neither we nor II
Number of High School Students Who Completed Summer Internships High school Year 2008 2009 2010 2011
Medium-difficulty · SAT Math · One-Variable Data & Statistics — Mean, median, mode, range. Read the question above, select your answer, and check the full explanation below to understand exactly why the correct choice works.
Answer explanation
Choice C is correct. The mean of a data set is found by dividing the sum of the values by the number of values. Therefore, the mean number of students who completed summer internships from Foothill High School is 
, or 77.6. Similarly, the mean number from Valley High School is 
, or 64.2. Thus, the mean number from Foothill High School is greater than the mean number from Valley High School. When a data set has an odd number of elements, the median can be found by ordering the values from least to greatest and determining the value in the middle. Since there are five values in each data set, the third value in each ordered list is the median. Therefore, the median number from Foothill High School is 76 and the median number from Valley High School is 65. Thus, the median number from Foothill High School is greater than the median number from Valley High School.
Choices A, B, and D are incorrect and may result from various misconceptions or miscalculations.
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