Find the median of 5, 3, 7, 1, 9.

Explanation

• Sort the values before doing anything else: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.
• With five values the middle position is the third, so the median is 5.
• Sorting matters, because the middle of the unsorted list would wrongly point to 7.
• When the count of values is even, the median is the average of the two middle numbers.
• The mean is also (1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9) ÷ 5 = 5 here, but they agree only because the data is evenly spaced.