a$.$ Compute the weighted average for the annual medical costs at the five plants using the numbers of employees as the weights. The weighted average is $$.($Round to the nearest dollar as needed.$)$

b$.$ Explain why the company would want to use a weighted average in this situation rather than a simple average of the five medical cost values.

A$.$ The weighted average takes into account the variation in the data instead of only providing a measure of central tendency.

B$.$ The weighted average takes into account extreme values and is therefore a more reasonable measure of the average payments than would be an un$-$weighted average.

D$.$ The weighted average takes into account both the mean and the median of the data, instead of only providing the simpler measure of only the mean.