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Put this in your calculator and shmoop it.

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In a stem and leaf plot showing ages of people attending the Tri-State Science Fair,

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one row reads "3, 0 0 0 4 5 8 9 9."

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This information tells us that... what?

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And here are the potential answers...

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We're given a single row from a stem and leaf plot, and we need to interpret it to figure

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out which of our answer choices is true.

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Remember that in a stem and leaf plot, the

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stem is typically the tens value, and the leaves are the individual ones place values.

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From this row, we know that the values in our stem and leaf plot are:

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30, 30, 30, 34, 35, 38, 39, and 39. Now we can answer the question.

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Answer choice A says that the median is 34.5. To find the median, we just find the middle

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value of all of the data. But wait a second... we only know one row of values, and we don't

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know the others. There could be any number of values in the

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10's place, or 40's place...or anywhere. We simply don't know.

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So we can eliminate answer choice A. Answer choice B wants us to find the mode,

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or the most frequently occurring value in the data set.

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But again, we don't know the other values in this data set...so it can't be B either.

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If we take a quick scan of choices C, D, and E...

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we realize we can't find the min and max in choices D and E either...

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...again, because we don't know all the values of the data set.

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The only answer choice left is (C).

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C says that there were two 39 year olds at the science fair.

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It just so happens that we have the row with people in their 30's, and it also just so

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happens that there were exactly 2 people who were age 39.

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Our answer is (C).

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