In real life, we may come across many scenarios where we cannot predict or declare a quantity’s value directly. In such cases, we can use averages to determine an estimate of value to the quantity. There can be so many values for any given data set or anything. It is challenging to perform numerically or conclude some facts from every value because it will be cumbersome. Hence, the average or arithmetic means will provide us an approximate estimate about the expected values in that set so that the calculations on all the values will be more or less the same. Therefore, it is best effective if the data provided do not have a huge difference.

In colloquial expression, an average is defined as a unique number that can be taken as representative of a data set or a list of numbers. Different thoughts of average are used in different situations and contexts. Usually, the word average refers to the arithmetic mean and is calculated by dividing the sum of the data values or observations by the number of data values or observations. In some cases, we may use the geometric mean when the data values are given in terms of the product of numbers.

In census, if we have to find the mean lifetime of a person, then we need to calculate the total age of a selected population and divide by the number of people. The resulting value will be a representative of the population’s average lifetime. In this case, the selected population should include all the categories of people who are living in cities and villages. Similarly, we can find the average height, weight or age of students in a class. These are every common scenario that we may observe in our daily existence. Without average, we cannot predict how much age should be considered for the students of a specific class while analyzing the data regarding literacy.

When dealing with income and other financial transactions, we have to use the concept of average to make some conclusions. For example, we live in a region where we can observe two incomes: high incomes and pretty low incomes. Generally, we all purchase houses, but those with lower incomes are not so expensive, and the homes that those with high incomes buy are costly (expensive). We can formulate a bi-modal distribution of the prices of the house in this area. A hump for the lower-priced houses will be the typical price on a graph of house prices and another hump over the particular expensive house price. Here, the average is calculated to understand the mean expense of a family to build a house. Also, mean deviation is taken in some situations to get the absolute value of the average income or other parameters.

Apart from the education, financial and data analysis, average is also used in weather related information to compare the temperature from last year or month to the current year or month. These analytics will help in understanding the climate changes over the period of time.