Question

2)

A university finished the season ranked sixth out of 119 teams in football and ninth out of 297 teams in baseball. Based on percentile rank, which team had the better ranking?

A)

the baseball team

Please explain

B)

the football team

Answer 1

Percentile is also known as relative standing. It is not the percentage of your marks or your ranking, rather it is the position your rank has as compared to other people. In other words, if you want to know where you stand with respect to other people, you will need a relative standing and that is known as percentile.

In general,

Percentile = (number of people behind you/total number of people) x 100

For example, if you sit in an exam with 100 people and rank is 30th, that means your score is better than 70 people and hence your percentile is 70%.

So, for the football team, who are 6th out of 119 teams, they are better than 113 teams. So, their percentile becomes :

And for baseball team, who are 9th out of 297 teams, so they are better than 288 teams. So, their percentile becomes :

As seen above, the baseball team has a better percentile rank.