Which statement best reflects the appropriate measure of central tendency when data contain outliers?

• A. Median
• B. Mean
• C. Mode
• D. Range

Answer: (A)

When data include unusually large or small values, you want a measure of central tendency that isn’t dragged toward those extremes. The median fits this need because it reflects the middle position in the ordered data, so extreme outliers have little influence on it. For example, in the set 3, 4, 5, 5, 1000, the median is 5, which represents a typical observation, while the mean becomes heavily skewed by the 1000. The mode is about the most frequent value and can be misleading if outliers create rare values that aren’t representative, and the range describes how spread out the data are rather than a central value. So the median is the best measure in the presence of outliers.