Expert: Josh - 10/22/2008

Question
What is the mode for 198,81,114,65,98,21,119,184,70, and 100

Answer
Hi Carolyn

In mathematics, the mode is the number that appears most often in a list of elements. e.g., 3 is the mode in {1,2,1,3,3,1,0,3,2,3,1,3,0}.

This question does not make much sense since everything appears only once here. According to http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761565756 this sequence does not have a mode.

On the other hand, if these numbers represent the frequency count for the scores from 1 to 10, respectively, then we can ask how many peaks there are in the distribution (probability mass function);
plotting (x=1,y=198), (x=2,y=81), (x=3,y=114) and so forth.

In statistics, a histogram with a single peak is said to uni-modal. One with two peaks is bi-modal.