can you calculate the mode of a distribution using only the standard deviation and mean?

Question

Stats question asking me to calculate the mode of a frequency, but only information given is the mean and the standard deviation. Is this possible? 

Answer 1

The mode is the most frequent number in the data. The mean is the average. The median is the middle when the data is listed from low to high. For example, if you have the following:

 

2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 11

 

the mode is 7; most frequent in the list

 

the median is 6; the number exactly in the middle (if there is an even number in the list, take the mean of the two middle numbers)

 

the mean is the arithmetic average: add up all the numbers, and (in this case) divide by 11: 5.7 (rounded to the tenth)

 

Because the mean, median, and mode are not the same number, you know that this is not a normal bell curve. 

Answer 2

The mode is the data that appears most frequently. In the normal (bell) curve the mean, median, and mode are all the same.

Answer 3

The first step that statisticians often use is to produce a frequency table.  This gives an initial sense of the distribution of the observations.  Then the mean (algebraic average), median, and mode give some additional information.

 

Now, if you happen to have a frequency distribution (even if it is not yet sorted), the mode is the observation that occurs the most times -- look for that!!