Math & Statistics · 均值、中位数与众数 · Updated 2026-10-25
What Is Mean, Median and Mode?
Definition
The mean is sensitive to outliers, the median is positional and robust, the mode is the most frequent value. For right-skewed data (income, house prices), the median represents the typical person better.
Formula
Mean = Σxᵢ/n; Median = middle value of sorted data
Worked Example
Salaries 5k/6k/7k/8k/50k: mean 15.2k but median 7k — the mean hides what typical workers earn.
Common Misconception
"The mean is the typical value" - outliers can distort it badly; "the median is always better" - for symmetric distributions they nearly coincide, and the mean uses all the information, so it is statistically more efficient.
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