sat blue book page 888 number 6
I’ll do this one two ways. First, the “long” way, which isn’t really that long: Just list out all the scores in order, including Sam’s 95. Then cross off left and right until you’re left with a middle value!
60, 70, 70, 75, 75, 80, 80, 80, 85, 90, 90, 90, 90, 95, 95, 95, 100
I’m not going to go through the whole thing here because it would take up a lot of space and you get the idea, but once you’ve got the list all you need to do is cross off, one at a time, items from the far left and far right.
60, 70, 70, 75, 75, 80, 80, 80, 85, 90, 90, 90, 90, 95, 95, 95, 100
60, 70, 70, 75, 75, 80, 80, 80, 85, 90, 90, 90, 90, 95, 95, 95, 100
60, 70, 70, 75, 75, 80, 80, 80, 85, 90, 90, 90, 90, 95, 95, 95, 100
60, 70, 70, 75, 75, 80, 80, 80, 85, 90, 90, 90, 90, 95, 95, 95, 100
And there you have it. 85 is your median.
The shortcut, if you can call it that, is to recognize that once Sam takes the test, there will be 17 scores in the class. That means there will be 8 scores greater than the median and 8 scores less than the median. So you can just look carefully at the table and count the lowest 8 scores (1 60, 2 70s, 2 75s, and 3 80s) and you’ll see that the median must be 85. (You can also do this counting down from the greatest values, as long as you remember to include Sam’s 95, which isn’t in the table yet.)
