Measures and analytical questions
Counts, totals, and averages answer different questions about the same activity.
Carlos runs an online store. On Tuesday he shipped twice as many orders as on Monday, yet he brought in less money. How can the busier day bring in less money?
| Day | Orders | Money collected |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 4 | $80 |
| Tuesday | 8 | $64 |
4 minutes. No sign-up needed.
What you'll learn5 ideas
- A count tells you how many things happened, like 3 orders, without looking at their dollar amounts.
- A total adds up all the amounts, so more orders don't always mean more money.
- An average splits the total evenly across the orders to give the amount per order.
- You pick the measure by what the question asks: how many, how much altogether, or how much per order.
- An average alone doesn't tell you how many orders happened, so equal averages can hide different totals.