What does a percentile indicate?

A percentile is a statistical measure that indicates the relative standing of a value within a dataset. Specifically, it represents the percentage of scores in a distribution that a particular score is greater than or equal to. For example, if a person is in the 70th percentile, they have scored better than 70% of the other participants in the dataset.

This concept captures how data points are dispersed across intervals rather than being merely a single value or an average. It gives insight into how individual data points compare to the overall dataset distribution. This is particularly helpful in understanding the spread of data, observing patterns, and making comparisons between different sets of data.

The other choices describe different statistical concepts that do not accurately reflect what a percentile represents. The maximum data point refers to the highest value in a dataset, a measure of central tendency is typically about the mean or median, and the average of a dataset specifically indicates the arithmetic mean, which does not convey information about the distribution of values within a dataset. Therefore, the correct interpretation aligns with the definition of percentile, emphasizing the spread of the data across intervals.