There were 8 judges at a gymnastic competition. Kathleen received these scores for her performance on the uneven parallel bars: 8.2, 8.7, 8.8, 8.8, 8.9, 8.9, 8.9, 9.2 Mean = 8.8 Median = 8.85 Mode = 8.9 Which statistic reflects a typical score? Explain.

Mean, median and mode given in the question are all used to measure central tendency of a given data. From the sets of data given, and from the values of the mean, median and mode (8.8, 8.85 and 8.9 respectively) it can be summarized that these values points the center of the sets of data trying to estimate the average.

MEAN is the statistic that reflects a typical score because when we look at the data (8.2, 8.7, 8.8, 8.8, 8.9, 8.9, 8.9, 9.2), it easily gives us the average score. Since mean = addition of the data value / the number of the data, it gives us Kathleen average score since it takes all the judges scores into consideration giving us the typical score. Unlike mode that only use most occured data meaning it doen't use all the data and as such may not show the true average of the scores. Also, mode is not consistent when it comes to small number of data especially if no score occur most or we have more than one mode. It is not median because of the small number of scores (data).