A disadvantage of using an arithmetic mean to summarize a set of data is that __________.
A) The arithmetic mean sometimes has two values
B) It can be used for interval and ratio data
C) It is always different from the median
D) It can be biased by one or two extremely small or large values

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Using an arithmetic mean can be biased by one or two extremely small or large values, known as outliers. This can greatly affect the value of the mean and make it an unreliable summary statistic.

A Disadvantage of Using an Arithmetic Mean to Summarize a Set