Arithmetic Mean

[ryurynts]

Hi everyone,

I have a linguistic background and I have just embarked on preparation for the Quantitative part of GMAT. Therefore, please excuse me for my over-primitive question which came into my mind when I was trying to solve the last week's problem of the week. The question is:

when we calculate the average mean, do we pay any attention to sign when we are adding up the numbers?

Ex. if we have 2, 3, 4, -6, 10, the average is 5 or 13/5?

Perhaps, this is the most stupid question asked in this forum, but still your comment would be appreciated.

[deepthi.rajan]

If there are negative numbers then those numbers will be subtracted while summing all the numbers.

Ex. if we have 2, 3, 4, -6, 10, the average is 5 or 13/5?

The sum will be 19-6=(sum of all positive numbers)-negative numbers (if any)/(count of numbers)
The average will be 13/5

[ryurynts]

thanks. This is the confirmation I needed. Much appreciated.

[esledge]

Thanks deepthi.rajan, for answering before we got a chance to do so!