Question

HELP; The life spans of 10 adult mayflies have a mean of 4 hours and a MAD of 2 hours. Fill in the table below with possible values for the life spans. You can use the same values more than once. Can any one of the 10 mayflies in the group live for 1 full day? Justify your answer.

Answer 1

Step-by-step answer:

Assuming MAD stands for mean absolute deviation (2 hours), then the total absolute deviation from the mean (4 hours) is 10*2=20 hours.

If one of the flies live for 1 full day, the absolute deviation is 24-4=20 hours.  This automatically requires the other flies live exactly 4 hours to have the MAD equal to 20 hours.  

However, the above arrangement does not give a mean of 4 hours, but a mean of (24+9*4)/10=6 hours. This means that it is not possible to have a fly living for a full day.