The World Malaria Report (2008)has information on the number of reported malaria cases from 2005 and 2006 for the 10 countries listed in West Africa.The data are presented in the table below. If the number of reported malaria cases in Sierra Leone were mistyped and reported as 1,160,666,what would happen to the mean and median?
A)Both would remain unchanged.
B)The mean would change,but the median would stay the same.
C)The mean and median would change.
D)You cannot tell without doing the actual calculation.

Question

The World Malaria Report (2008)has information on the number of reported malaria cases from 2005 and 2006 for the 10 countries listed in West Africa.The data are presented in the table below.  If the number of reported malaria cases in Sierra Leone were mistyped and reported as 1,160,666,what would happen to the mean and median?
A)Both would remain unchanged. 
B)The mean would change,but the median would stay the same. 
C)The mean and median would change. 
D)You cannot tell without doing the actual calculation.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Both the mean and median are affected by extreme values/outliers, and a reported number of 1,160,666 is much higher than any other value in the dataset. Therefore, both the mean and median would be affected and would increase significantly.

The World Malaria Report (2008)has Information on the Number of Reported