What is the mode?

• A. The largest score
• B. The average of all scores
• C. The middle score when ordered
• D. The most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution

Answer: (D)

Mode is the value that occurs most often in a data set. It shows which score repeats more than any other. This is different from the mean, which is the average, and the median, which is the middle value when the data are ordered. If a number appears more times than any other, that number is the mode. If two or more values share the highest frequency, the data have multiple modes. If every score appears only once, there is no mode.

For example, in 3, 5, 3, 7, 8, 3, the mode is 3 because it appears three times. In 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, the modes are 2 and 3 since both occur twice, more than the others.