College Math Placement Practice Test 2026 - Free College Math Questions and Study Guide

To calculate the median of a set of numbers, you first need to organize the numbers in ascending order, which in this case are already sorted as 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. The median is defined as the middle number in a data set when there is an odd number of observations.

In this specific set, there are five numbers. The median will be the third number in this ordered list since it is the middle value. When you count the numbers: the first is 3, the second is 5, and the third is 7. Thus, 7 is the median.

If the set contained an even number of values, the median would be the average of the two middle numbers. However, in this case, with an odd number of values, identifying the median is straightforward as being the direct middle number. Therefore, the correct median for the set {3, 5, 7, 9, 11} is indeed 7.