What if there is no mode in a set of numbers?

Mode means a value or a number that appears most frequently in a data set. If each value in a data set is present in the set for the same number of times, then we say that the data set has no mode.

Answer: It is possible for a data set to have no mode. In that case, we cannot use mode as a measure of central tendency.

The mode is one of the values of the measure of central tendencies. Let us explore what happens if no mode exists in a set of numbers.

Explanation:

Yes, it is possible to have no mode for a data set. For example, consider the following data sets:

• the data set: {2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16} has each number repeating for the same number (once) of times, and hence it does not have any mode.
• the data set: {1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4} has each number repeating for the same number (twice) of times, and hence it does not have any mode.

If this is the case, we cannot use mode as a measure of central tendency.

Thus, if data has no mode then we can't use mode as a measure of central tendency, instead, we can use mean, median, etc.