The mode

The mode of a set of information is the value that appears with a major frequency.

Example

A dice is thrown ten times and the results are the following:

$1, 3, 2, 5, 4, 2, 6, 2, 3, 6$

The table of absolute frequencies is:

Result of the dice	Absolute frequency
$1$	$1$
$2$	$3$
$3$	$2$
$4$	$1$
$5$	$1$
$6$	$2$

It is easy to see that the mode is $2$ , for it is the most frequent result.

Example

The statistics of the players of Los Angeles Lakers in the first match of the finals of the NBA are the following:

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a) What is the mode of scored points (PTS) among the Lakers players?

We can see in the last column, the points column, the only value that recurs is 3 points (those scored by S. Brown and S. Vujacic). And so, the mode is $3$ .

b) And the mode of personal fouls (PF)?

The relative table of the number of personal fouls is:

Personal fouls	Absolute frequency
$0$	$1$
$1$	$2$
$2$	$2$
$3$	$2$
$4$	$2$
$5$	$1$

We can see that the values $1, 2, 3$ and $4$ recur twice, that is, two players made $1$ foul, $2$ made $2$ fouls, etc. And so, the mode of the personal fouls is $1, 2, 3$ and $4$ .