Fifteen students are randomly selected from two different classes. They were asked how many books they read during the summer. Their responses are as follows. Find the median number of books read by each class. Which class has a higher median number of books read?

Question

Class 1: 0, 5, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 4, 5, 6
Class 2: 2, 2, 4, 3, 0, 0, 6, 7, 10, 9, 6, 5, 3, 1, 2

The median number of books read during the summer by Class 1 is
.
The median number of books read during the summer by Class 2 is
.
Class
has a higher median number of books read during the summer.

Answer 1

To find the median, we need to first put the responses in order from least to greatest.

Class 1: 0, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10
Class 2: 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10

For Class 1, the median is the middle number, which is 5.

For Class 2, there are two middle numbers (4 and 5), so we take the average of those two numbers to get the median, which is 4.5.

Therefore, Class 1 has a higher median number of books read (5) than Class 2 (4.5).