A major disadvantage of the arithmetic means is that it is

Assessment: JAMB UTME - Economics - 2011 Subject: Economics

Question 1 Report

A major disadvantage of the arithmetic means is that it is
Answer Details
A major disadvantage of the arithmetic mean is that it is affected by extreme data. The arithmetic mean is a statistical measure used to calculate the average of a set of data points. It is calculated by adding up all the data points and dividing the sum by the number of data points. However, the problem with using the arithmetic mean is that it can be heavily influenced by extreme data points, or outliers. Outliers are data points that are significantly different from the rest of the data, either higher or lower than the average. When outliers are present in a data set, they can skew the arithmetic mean, making it an inaccurate representation of the data. For example, if a data set consists of salaries for a company, and the CEO's salary is much higher than the rest of the salaries, then the arithmetic mean will be heavily influenced by the CEO's salary and will not represent the average salary of the employees. Therefore, the correct answer is affected by extreme data. It is not that the arithmetic mean is not useful for large data, not suitable for further statistical analysis, or cumbersome to determine the actual value.

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