What is the formula to calculate the mean of a set of data?

The mean of a set of data is calculated by taking the sum of all the items in the set and then dividing that total by the number of items. This method ensures that each value in the dataset contributes equally to the overall average.

For example, if you have the numbers 2, 3, and 5, the sum of these numbers is 10. Since there are three numbers in the set, you would divide the sum (10) by the number of items (3), resulting in a mean of approximately 3.33. This calculation provides a representative value that summarizes the overall dataset.

The other options present incorrect methodologies for calculating the mean. The first option incorrectly describes a calculation that does not yield the mean. The third option refers to the square root, which does not correspond to how the mean is typically defined. The last choice mentions the median, which is the middle value in a data set when it is ordered, and is a different measure of central tendency altogether.