Which term best describes the group that includes the mean, median, and mode?

Which term best describes the group that includes the mean, median, and mode?

• A. Descriptive measures
• B. Descriptive statistics
• C. Measures of dispersion
• D. Measures of central tendency

Answer: (D)

The main idea here is identifying how we describe a typical value in a data set. Mean, median, and mode are all measures of central tendency—they summarize where the data tend to cluster or the central value around which observations revolve. The mean is the arithmetic average, the median is the middle value when data are ordered, and the mode is the most frequent value. These statistics focus on the central point of the distribution, not on how spread out the data are. By contrast, measures of dispersion describe spread (like range or standard deviation), and descriptive statistics is the broad umbrella that includes both central tendency and dispersion. So the best term for the group that includes mean, median, and mode is measures of central tendency.