Question

The median is the middle value for an even number of values. true or false

Answer 1

Answer is false.

Median is the “middle” number of a sorted list of numbers. It is that observation in a set of sorted observations that divides the observations into 2 equal parts.

For example, in case of odd number of observations: 2,5,9,17,20

The observations are all sorted. The middle observation is 9, which divides the list of observation into 2 buckets, one bucket with values <9 and other with values > 9.

In case of even numbers: 2,5,9,17,20,25 however, there are 2 middle numbers. Hence median is average of the two middle values = (9 + 17)/2 = 13.

Hence, for even number of observations, median is not the middle number, but the average of 2 middle numbers.