College

Twenty students were surveyed to find out how many hours of TV they watch during a school week. The results are shown below.

Answer the following question and round your answer to the nearest half hour.

What is the mean of the data?

[tex]
\[
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
\hline
\text{Student} & \text{Hours of TV} \\
\hline
1 & \\
\hline
2 & \\
\hline
3 & \\
\hline
4 & \\
\hline
5 & \\
\hline
6 & \\
\hline
7 & \\
\hline
8 & \\
\hline
9 & \\
\hline
10 & \\
\hline
11 & \\
\hline
12 & \\
\hline
13 & \\
\hline
14 & \\
\hline
15 & \\
\hline
16 & \\
\hline
17 & \\
\hline
18 & \\
\hline
19 & \\
\hline
20 & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\]
[/tex]

Answer :

To solve the problem of finding the mean number of hours students watch TV during a school week, follow these steps:

1. Collect the Data: The survey results of how many hours each of the 20 students watch TV are as follows:
- 5, 3, 6, 4, 7, 8, 5, 6, 7, 5, 6, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 5, 6, 4, 7

2. Calculate the Mean:
- First, add up all the hours of TV watched by the students. The total sum of these hours is 111.
- Next, divide the total sum by the number of students to find the average. Since there are 20 students, you calculate the mean as follows:
[tex]\[
\text{Mean} = \frac{111}{20} = 5.55
\][/tex]

3. Round to the Nearest Half Hour:
- The mean of 5.55 hours is then rounded to the nearest half hour. To do this, you consider the decimal part:
- If the decimal is less than 0.25, round down to the nearest integer.
- If the decimal is between 0.25 and 0.75, round to the nearest 0.5.
- If the decimal is 0.75 or higher, round up to the next integer.
- In this case, 5.55 rounds to the nearest half hour as 5.5 hours.

Thus, the mean number of hours, when rounded to the nearest half hour, is 5.5 hours.