Question

Question

The annual salaries of the ten employees of a small company are shown:
$25,000
$45,000
$55,000
$25,000
$35,000
$1,000,000
$35,000
$45,000
$55,000
$25,000

Which of these is the MOST reasonable representation of the annual salary of a typical employee of the company?
Responses

A $25,000 since this is the mode annual salary.$25,000 since this is the mode annual salary.

B $40,000 since this is the median annual salary.$40,000 since this is the median annual salary.

C $134,500 since this is the mean annual salary.$134,500 since this is the mean annual salary.

D $173,100 since this is the mean average deviation of the annual salaries.

Answer 1

B. The sorted salaries are 25k,25k,25k,35k,35k,45k,45k,55k,55k,1,000,000; the median is the average of the 5th and 6th values (35k and 45k) = $40,000. The mean ($134,500) is inflated by the $1,000,000 outlier, so the median is the most reasonable "typical" salary.