8. A store owner wants to know the average sales for each day of the week. Which statistic is this store owner looking for?
Answer: D
The store owner is looking for the mean sales for each day of the week.
The mean represents the average value of a set of numbers, which in this case refers to the average sales for each day of the week.
A) Variance
Variance measures the dispersion of a set of data points around their mean, but it does not provide an average. Therefore, it is not the statistic the store owner seeks for calculating average daily sales.
B) Distribution
Distribution refers to how values are spread or arranged in a dataset. While it provides information about the frequency of sales, it does not calculate the average sales per day, making it irrelevant to the store owner's query.
C) Median
The median denotes the middle value in a dataset when arranged in order. Although it provides a measure of central tendency, it does not represent the average sales for each day, which is specifically what the store owner wants to determine.
D) Mean
The mean is the sum of all sales divided by the number of days, representing the average sales for each day of the week. This is precisely what the store owner is looking for in order to understand the average performance of the store throughout the week.
Conclusion
The mean is the most appropriate statistic for the store owner's need to find average daily sales, as it directly calculates the average of the sales figures. In contrast, variance, distribution, and median do not provide the necessary average and therefore fail to meet the requirements of the question.