Answer:
Mode
Step-by-step explanation:
The answer is Mode. Mode is basically a number or data item that appears most frequently in a data set. First lets see how we find Mode. To find the Mode in the data set, first the numbers or data items are placed in order. Then it is counted that how many times each number appears. A number or data item that appears most frequently is the mode.
So lets a student builds unifix cube towers to represent the ages of the five children as following:
3 1 2 2 4
Now the student first places them in order from smallest to largest
1 2 2 3 4
Now she removes the shortest and tallest tower. Shortest is 1 and tallest is having 4 cubes. After removal of shortest and tallest tower:
2 2 3
Then removes the next shortest and tallest tower. Now the shortest tower has 2 cubes and tallest has 3 cubes. After removal of shortest and tallest tower:
2
The tower in the middle is remaining i.e. 2
So as you can see the most frequently occurring from 1 2 2 3 4 is also 2 as it appears twice. So that means student has found Mode. Although the same method is used to find the median too but here the most appropriate option is Mode. Mean is the way to find the average but it is computed by adding the numbers in the data set with the total size of data. So its not an appropriate option because the method that the student followed does not match with the method to compute mean. Also range is not a valid option because range finds the difference of the largest and smallest number and the method that student used is different from the method to compute range. If we compute the difference between largest and smallest number we get 3.
