what is the mode 
the mode is the value that appears most frequently in a data set a set of data may have one mode more than one mode or no mode at all other popular measures of central tendency include the mean or the average of a set and the median the middle value in a set understanding the modein statistics data can be distributed in various ways the most often cited distribution is the classic normal bell curve distribution in this and some other distributions the mean average value falls at the midpoint which is also the peak frequency of observed values for such a distribution the mean median and mode are all the same values this means that this value is the average value the middle value and also the mode the most frequently occurring value in the data mode is most useful as a measure of central tendency when examining categorical data such as models of cars or flavors of soda for which a mathematical average median value based on ordering can not be calculated examples of the modefor example in the following list of numbers 16 is the mode since it appears more times in the set than any other number a set of numbers can have more than one mode this is known as bimodal if there are two modes if there are multiple numbers that occur with equal frequency and more times than the others in the set in the above example both the number 3 and the number 16 are modes as they each occur three times and no other number occurs more often if no number in a set of numbers occurs more than once that set has no mode a set of numbers with two modes is bimodal a set of numbers with three modes is trimodal and any set of numbers with more than one mode is multimodal 