Stem and Leaf Diagrams

Stem and leaf diagrams are used to put long lists of data in order easily.This can help with finding medians and quartiles, but doesn't help to find the mean or mode, as what order the data is in is irrelevant to them.

For example, if this was the set of data:141, 132, 128, 145, 137, 138, 140, 149, 131, 143, 139, 125, 126, 142, 132, 129, 127, 134, 130You could put it in order using a stem and leaf diagram, to end up with this:12 | 5, 6, 7, 8, 913 | 0, 1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 8, 913 | 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9

Once you have your stem and leaf diagram, you can easily find the median and quartiles, as the data is all in order.

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