Question

A hardware store sells lightbulbs in the following wattages: 25, 40, 60, 75, 100. At midday, the store sells out of 60-watt bulbs. By how many watts does the median decrease? Answer to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT 3.5]

The median is the middle value when the data is arranged in numerical order. Since the store sells out of 60-watt bulbs, the new list of wattages becomes: 25, 40, 75, 100.

The median of this new list is the average of the two middle values, which are 40 and 75. Therefore, the median is (40 + 75) / 2 = 57.5 watts.

The original median was 60 watts, so the median decreases by 60 - 57.5 = 2.5 watts.

Therefore, the median decreases by 2.5 watts.