Mean, Median, and Mode
The values 24, 18, 25, 30, 14, 2, 2, 26 were recorded in a survey. What is the median of the data set?
Correct answer: A — 24
Order the data: 2, 2, 14, 18, 24, 25, 26, 30. With 8 values the median is the middle entry, which is 24.
Before you ever look at the worked solution, write the problem on a fresh sheet of scratch paper and try it without time pressure. SAT math rewards process more than speed in your first month of study; speed comes later, almost automatically, once the process is automatic. If you arrive at an answer that matches one of the choices, do not stop — read the question stem one more time and verify that what you computed is actually what was asked. Many SAT math questions are designed to reward the student who solves the equation correctly and then stops, when the question actually asked for an unrelated expression. The wrong-answer choices on this question were designed to catch precisely those near-miss patterns, so a matching answer is reassuring but not conclusive.
If your answer does not match, do not immediately reveal the solution. Instead, work the problem a second time using a different method — substitution instead of elimination, plugging in answer choices instead of solving algebraically, sketching the figure if it is geometric. Two independent attempts that arrive at the same wrong answer point to a conceptual gap. Two attempts with two different answers point to a careless error you can train yourself out of. Both diagnoses are valuable, but they suggest different review strategies. Once you do consult the worked solution, copy it onto your scratch paper line by line. The act of writing it out is the difference between recognizing the pattern next week and forgetting it by Friday.