Statistics · Quick Reference

Mode Cheat Sheet

Statistics · Lesson 4/11

In one line: the mode is the most frequently occurring value in a dataset — the only measure of central tendency that works for purely categorical data.

Key Ideas

1Definition. The value (or values) that appear most often in a dataset.

2Unimodal, Bimodal, Multimodal. Unimodal: one mode. Bimodal: two modes (two values tie for most frequent). Multimodal: more than two modes.

3No Mode. If every value appears exactly once, the dataset has no mode.

4Mode with Categorical Data. Unlike mean and median, the mode can be found for non-numeric data, like the most common eye color in a group.

5Mode from a Frequency Table. Simply identify the category or value with the highest frequency count.

Worked Examples

Find the mode of 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9.

Mode = 7

Find the mode of 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4.

Modes = 2 and 3 (bimodal)

A survey of favorite fruit finds: Apple-12, Banana-20, Mango-15, Orange-8. Find the mode.

Mode = Banana

Practice Yourself

Find the mode of 4, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Find the mode of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

No mode, all values appear once

Find the mode of 8, 8, 9, 9, 10.

8 and 9 (bimodal)

Can the mode be used for categorical (non-numeric) data?

Yes