MTTC Integrated Science (Secondary) (094) Practice Test

Which statistic describes dispersion and how far data are from the mean?

Mean Standard Deviation Median Mode

Correct Answer:

Standard Deviation

Explanation:

Dispersion, or variability, is about how spread out the data are around the center. The standard deviation measures the typical distance of each data point from the mean, which gives a direct sense of how much the values vary. A small standard deviation means most data are close to the mean; a large one means they’re spread farther away. The other statistics describe where the data tend to sit rather than how spread out they are: the mean is a measure of central tendency, the median is the middle value, and the mode is the most frequent value. While useful for understanding the center, they don’t quantify dispersion like the standard deviation does.

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