What is the median time spent eating lunch by the 17 students?

To determine the median time spent eating lunch by the 17 students, you first need to organize the data in increasing order. The median is the middle number in a sorted list. Since there are 17 students, the median will be the 9th number in a sequence of 17, as it represents the middle point.

In this context, if the sorted times show that the 9th student takes 17 minutes for lunch, then the median time is indeed 17 minutes. This aligns with the method for finding the median where you locate the middle value of a set of numbers.

Being aware of the odd number of data points (in this case, 17), allows you to quickly ascertain that the median is straightforwardly the value at that middle position in the ordered list. Therefore, knowing how to properly identify and calculate the median is essential in understanding measures of central tendency in a data set.