How to Find an Average
Use these simple steps if need help with the basic math skill of how to find an average for a set of numbers. You can also utilize part of the process used to calculate an average (also referred to as the "mean") to determine the average cost of an item when you're comparison shopping.
- Difficulty:
- Easy
Instructions
-
-
1
Find an average by adding all of the numbers in the series together. If you're trying to find the average number for 7, 8, 10 and 11, for example, add them together to get the total of 36.
-
2
Divide the total number by the amount of numbers in the series. Since there were four numbers (7, 8, 10 and 11) that went into the total, divide 36 by 4 to find the average. The average, or mean, of these numbers is 9.
-
3
Use a "finding the average" math technique to save money on items like groceries, too. If you're trying to determine the better buy between two cases of water bottles, for example, divide the total price of the case by the number of bottles in the case. This will give you the average price per bottle, which you can then compare to the price per bottle in the other case to discover the most economical buy.
-
1
Related Searches
Resources
- Photo Credit Dreamstime
Comments
-
me...
-
Peggy Hazelwood
Jan 15, 2009
Nice refresher on finding the average. And the term "mean." I get mean, median, and mode confused. -
jbechtold
Jan 15, 2009
Nice article I love math like this. Being a server percentages and averages are very important when 3 people want to split a check and I don't have a calculater. You would not beleive how many coworkers are lost when people want to split a check.
-
tocuriousgeorge
Jan 14, 2009
Great article! My statistics professor taught that the mean was slightly different than the average though. Check it out-could be another article for ya!
-
kaseysviewblog
Jan 14, 2009
Good details, nice & easy to underestand.
