A pediatrician is recording the number of children with a specific food allergy in her practice over a month. She finds the following counts for the number of children with this allergy each day: 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 2, 6, 4, 2, 7.
What is the mode of the number of children with this food allergy in her practice during this month?
A: 2
The mode is the value that appears most frequently in a dataset. In this case, the number 2 appears most frequently, occurring four times (on the first, fourth, ninth, and twelfth day), making it the mode.
Answer choice B: 4, is incorrect. Although the number 4 occurs three times, it is not the most frequently occurring value in this dataset.
Answer choice C: 5, is incorrect. The number 5 appears only once, making it less frequent than 2.
Answer choice D: 6, is incorrect. The number 6 appears only once, making it less frequent than 2.
Answer choice E: 7, is incorrect. The number 7 appears only once, making it less frequent than 2.
Key Learning Point
The mode is the value in a dataset that appears most frequently. It is a useful measure of central tendency, especially for data with discrete values, as it represents the most common value in the dataset. In this example, the mode of the number of children with the food allergy is 2, as it occurs more frequently than any other value.
