Best, worst and average set

[onyx narwhal]

I have 4 sets of data.
All the data sets contain values where the lower the value, the better it is. (The time it took for an algorithm to run).

I need to find the best set, the worst set & the average set.
How do I find these?

I tried doing the best and worst set,
Find all averages, then the lowest average is the best set, and the highest average is the worst set. But I don't know if this is a correct way of calculating this.
Also I tried finding the average set,
I took the average of all averages, then compared all average values with it.
The one closest to it, I chose it as the average set.

Is my method wrong? What should I do?

[viral vine]

1. Wait patiently for a helper to come along.
2. Once someone helps you, say thank you and close the thread with:

+close

3. Feel free to nominate the person for helper of the week in #helper-nominations
4. Do not ping the mods, unless someone is breaking the rules.
5. If you're happy with the help you got here, and the server overall, you can contribute financially as well:

[bright shell]

What is the context? What makes a set "the best" or "the worst"? Is it containing the fastest algorithm? Containing more fast algorithms?

Because when you take the average runtime of all the algorithms in a set, what you're effectively saying is, "if we pick a random algorithm from this set, this is how long we should expect it to take to run".

[onyx narwhal]

The 1st set is sequential search.
The 2nd one is binary search.
The 3rd is jump search.
4th is ternary search.

I picked 29 keys throughout the list I searched through that are well spread across the whole list. The last one is a non existent key.
The values in each is "the number of iterations each algorithm took
And the time each algorithm took to find the key"

[bright shell]

That doesn't really answer the question I asked.

[onyx narwhal]

I wasn't told the things that make an algorithm good/bad. In this situation. I assumed since it is searching, the one with less time would be the better one and the one with the highest time would be the worst one

[bright shell]

That's also not what I asked. I asked what makes a set good or bad.

[onyx narwhal]

The things inside it?

[bright shell]

That's what makes a set itself. What makes it good or bad?

[onyx narwhal]

I'm completely out of replies. How do I figure that out

[bright shell]

How should I know? Where did this question even come from?

[onyx narwhal]

An assignment

[bright shell]

Show me the original question.