Is the average the same as the mean?

Answer 1

Not always. An average is a value that acts as a good representative of a set of numbers. Mathematically, the average is the sum of all values, divided by the number of values there are. This is known as the arithmetic mean. There are also two other forms of average, other than the arithmetic mean. They are the Mode and Median. The Mode is the most common value in a list and the Median is the middle value when all are arranged in numerical order.

The mean is the most common form of average used. However there are occasions where a mode or median is better. If you have a lot of numbers and one number is huge compared to all the rest, then the mean is likely to give a number that is above nearly all the numbers, so is not very representative. A median or a mode will work better in that situation. The mean will often result in a number that is a decimal, rather than a whole number, even if the numbers are all whole numbers. A median or may result in a whole number, though not always.

A mode is good when there are lots of numbers that are in groups of the same, as it will show which number is most common. If there is not one most common number, then there is no mode.
yes. the mean is the average.