Digital PSAT Math Practice Question 266: Answer and Explanation

Question: 266

A retailer sells certain numbers of shirts of the following price ranges during a particular day:

Which of the following is justifiable from the given table?

• A. The range of prices is $25
• B. The mean price is between $15 and $20
• C. The median price is between $15 and $20
• D. None of the above

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

(C) Use process of elimination here. You can eliminate choice (A) because you don't know the range: there is no upper limit provided. You only know that the upper limit is over $25.

Choice (B) can also be eliminated because you can't figure out an exact mean without knowing what the prices are. For instance, if the prices in the last row were all well above $25, and thus outliers, the mean would be very skewed.

Choice (C) can be tested. There are 12 + 15 + 10 + 21 + 7 = 65 terms in this series, so the median term will be the 33rd term (there are 32 terms smaller than this number and 32 terms larger than it). The first row encompasses terms 1-12. The second row encompasses 13-27, and the third has terms 28-37. Therefore, the 33rd term will fall in this third row, and thus will have a price between $15 and $20. Therefore, choice (C) is correct.