In Billy's $5^{th}$ grade class, the test scores for the final math exam were $87, \; 54, \; 77, \; 92, \; 96, \; 90, \; x$ and $85$. What is the value of $x$ if the median of the test scores is $83$ ?

Question

$\begin{array}{1 1} (a)\; 81 \\ (b)\; 80 \\ (c)\; 79 \\ (d)\; 78 \end{array}$