In a box plot, what does the line inside the box represent?

In a box plot, the line inside the box represents the median of the data set. The median is the value that divides the dataset into two equal halves, meaning that half of the data points fall below this value, and half fall above it. This central tendency measure provides a good representation of the data’s distribution and is particularly useful as it is not affected by outliers or extreme values.

The other features of the box plot, such as the minimum value, maximum value, and quartiles, serve to give a visual summary of the spread and range of the data, but the line inside the box specifically indicates the median, highlighting the midpoint of the dataset.