12.03 Picture graphs and dot plots
Are you ready?
Can you read simple picture graphs ? Graphs where each image represents 1 value, perhaps one person or object.
Examples
Example 1
A class were asked to vote which sport they would like to play in their next lesson. The votes are shown in the picture graph.
Each image represents 1 vote.
How many students are in the class?
Which sport received the most votes?
Picture graphs display data using pictures. It is important to read the key to understand what each picture represents.
Picture graphs
This video uses an example of a picture graph to understand all the important elements, including the rows, columns, title and key, it also shows some strategies to be able to interpret and draw out information from a picture graph.
Examples
Example 2
It’s "Back to school" time and a shop recorded the number of pens they sold this week.
How many pens were sold on Wednesday?
How many more pens were sold on Saturday than on Wednesday?
Another name for a picture graph is a pictograph. These graphs use pictures to represent data. One picture can have a value greater than 1, so we need to check the key to make sure we know what it represents.
Dot plots
This video looks at dot plots and how they are used to display information.
Examples
Example 3
Two dice are rolled and the total of the two numbers rolled is recorded. The results of 75 rolls are shown in the dot plot.
Which total is most likely?
How many rolls were 4 or less?
Even though picture graphs and dot plots are different types of graphs, they both have information that we can find out. Using the headings, labels and key means we can find out the answers to questions about the data we have collected.