A student was asked to find the arithmetic mean of the numbers 3, 11, 7, 9, 15, 13, 8, 19, 17, 21, 14 and x. He found mean to be 12. What should be the number in place of x?

Solution (By Examveda Team)

Clearly, we have
$$ \Rightarrow \frac{{3 + 11 + 7 + 9 + 15 + 13 + 8 + 19 + 17 + 21 + 14 + x}}{{12}} = 12$$
$$\eqalign{ & \Rightarrow 137 + x = 144 \cr & \Rightarrow x = 144 - 137 \cr & \Rightarrow x = 7 \cr} $$