Official Guide Explanation:
Problem Solving #63

 

 

Background

This is just one of hundreds of free explanations I've created to the quantitative questions in The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review (2nd ed.). Click the links on the question number, difficulty level, and categories to find explanations for other problems.

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Solution and Metadata

Question: 63
Page: 70
Difficulty: 4 (Moderately Easy)
Category 1: Arithmetic > Descriptive Statistics > Average
Category 2: Arithmetic > Descriptive Statistics > other

Explanation: To find the difference between the median and the mean, you first must find the median and the mean. To find the median, put the numbers in order: {0, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11}. There are an even number of terms, so the median is the mean of the middle two numbers, 4 and 5, or 4.5. Find the mean by dividing the sum of terms by the number of terms: ((0 + 2 + 4 + 5 + 8 + 11)/6) = (30/6) = 5. Since the mean is 5 and the median is 4.5, the mean is 5 - 4.5 = 0.5 greater than the median, choice (A).

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