Math 37

Lab 2

Part I

  1. Paste the bar graph from an article you found below and then type a sentence or two explaining why you find the topic interesting, and what the bar graph tells you.

Part II

The Harris Interactive polling agency surveyed 2,094 consumers in October of 2012, asking which former president they would most enjoy having a burger with. The top four vote-getters are summarized in the bar graph.

  1. Which former president had the highest percentage, and what was the percentage?
  2. How many of the respondents would most enjoy having a burger with the most popular choice?
  3. Which two presidents tied in the poll?
  4. How many people chose a president not in the top four?

The yearly net income or loss for the Ford Motor Company from 2007 to 2011 is shown in the next graph.

  1. Describe how Ford performed in 2008 and in 2010 in terms of profit or loss.
  2. What were the best and worst years for Ford from 2007 to 2011? Explain how you decided.
  3. What was the largest single-year increase in profit?

Part III

It’s really important to pay attention to all aspects of graphs, not just what the pretty picture looks like. Sometimes graphs can be misleading, as seen in the next example. These graphs might be poorly drawn, or they may be intentionally misleading to try to influence your opinions, or get you to buy products that you otherwise wouldn’t.

First GraphSecond Graph

  1. Look only at the HEIGHTS of the bars on the first graph. Describe how the number of calories appears to compare based on those heights.
  2. Assuming that a consumer enjoys the taste of all three cheeseburgers equally, how likely do you think this graph would be to influence which burger they choose to eat most often?
  3. Does the second graph provide the same information as the first?
  4. Again focusing on the heights of the bars (2nd graph), how do the three burgers compare in terms of calorie content?
  5. What scale is used on the vertical axis for each graph? (Scalerefers to the spacing of the labels on an axis.)
  6. Which of the three franchises would be most likely to use the first graph in advertising? Which would be most likely to use the second? Needless to say, you should explain your answers.

Part IV

Abar graphis a visual way to compare the sizes of different values. Pie charts are great for comparing parts to a whole: bar graphs are effective for comparing parts to other parts. In a bar graph, the length of each bar gives an indication of how the size of a quantity compares to other related quantities.

InQuestions 1and2, two different situations are described that you could illustrate with a graph. For one of the two, it would be most appropriate to use a bar graph, and for the other a pie chart would be a better choice.

Social Network Use:A survey of 100 college freshman found that 82 use Facebook, 10 use MySpace, 48 use Twitter, 60 use Instagram, and 33 use Google+.

Test scores:In a Geology class with 32 students, 6 earned an A on the first exam; 12 earned a B; 7 a C; and 4 earned a D.

  1. Which data is best illustrated with a bar graph?
  2. Which data is best illustrated with a pie chart?