The second quartile is also known as what?

The second quartile is known as the median because it represents the value that divides a dataset into two equal halves when the data is arranged in ascending order. In other words, the median is the middle value for an ordered set of numbers. If there is an even number of observations, the median is calculated as the average of the two central numbers.

Quartiles are measures that divide a dataset into four equal parts, and the second quartile (Q2) specifically corresponds to the median of the dataset. This concept is central in statistics for understanding the distribution and center of the data. The meaning of the median aligns with its role as a measure of central tendency, providing a better representation of the data when there are outliers or skewed distributions, as opposed to the mean.

Other statistical terms like mean, standard deviation, and mode refer to different characteristics of the dataset and do not serve the same function as the median in terms of dividing the dataset into equal parts.