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Grade 8

5.02 Pictographs, bar and misleading graphs

Worksheet
Bar graphs
1

The following graph shows the distribution of eye colour amongst students in Miss Skye’s class:

a

Which eye colour was most common?

b

How many more students had green eyes than brown eyes?

c

Which eye colour do 3 students have?

2

A group of boys were surveyed about their preferred sport and the results are shown in the following bar graph:

a

How many boys prefer football to other sports?

b

Which is the most popular sport?

c

How many boys took part in the survey?

3

The bar graph illustrates the genres of movies on Alex's favourite streaming site:

a

How many movies in total are there on the site?

b

What percentage of the movies are comedy?

4

The following graph shows how many laps a group of students walked on their school’s sponsored walk:

a

How many students participated in the walkathon?

b

How many students completed 21 laps or more?

5

Miss Yen displayed her students' favourite pets in the bar graph below:

a

Which type of pet is most popular?

b

Which type of pet is least popular?

c

How many students picked a Fish as their favourite pet?

d

How many students were surveyed in total?

6

Mr. Price recorded his students' favourite book genre in the column graph below:

a

Which book genre is most popular?

b

Which book genre is least popular?

c

How many more students prefer Detective books than Drama books?

7

Mr. Hopkins recorded the hair colours of the students in his class in the bar graph below:

a

Which hair colour is most common?

b

Which hair colour is least common?

c

How many more students have red hair than blonde hair?

8

Mrs Hubbard recorded her students' favourite fruits in the bar graph below:

a

Which fruit is most popular?

b

Which fruit is least popular?

c

How many students chose Pineapples?

d

What is the total number of students interviewed?

9

Consider the three bar graphs below:

a

Is the tallest person the oldest?

b

Is the heaviest person the oldest?

c

Is the heaviest person the tallest?

d

Is the youngest person the lightest?

e

Is it possible for a 10-year old to be lighter than an 8-year old?

10

Adventure Land recorded the number of people that visited during a week of the school holidays and graphed the results:

a

On what day did Adventure Land have the most visitors?

b

How many more visitors were there on Friday than Monday?

c

On what day did Adventure Land have 160 visitors?

11

The sales of different products are shown in the following horizontal bar graph:

a

Which is the best-selling product?

b

How many units of all products were sold in total?

c

If product B was sold at \$50 each, find the revenue generated by product B alone.

12

Which of these graphs do the following statements most likely refer to:

Graph 1:

Graph 2:

a

We took a break between 7 pm and 8 pm.

b

More people came by car than by bus.

c

The least number of people came on foot.

d

The trip was 192 \text{ km} long.

e

There were four means of transport surveyed.

Construct bar graphs
13

Jim’s Pet Store has 7 birds, 3 rabbits, 3 dogs, and 5 cats.

a

Construct a bar graph using the information.

b

How many more birds are there than dogs?

c

What animal is most common at Jim's pet store?

14

John had 7 blue marbles, 4 black marbles, 8 yellow marbles, 13 white marbles, and 6 red marbles. Use this information to create a bar graph.

15

The school canteen planned to introduce some new items on their lunch menu. They surveyed the students and found:

  • 8 students suggested miso soup.
  • 4 students suggested sushi.
  • 4 students wanted greek salad.
  • 5 students wanted pumpkin soup.
  • 15 students wanted spaghetti.
a

Construct a bar graph using the information.

b

How many more students want miso soup than greek salad?

c

Which item is most likely to be added to the menu?

16

The table shows the house points earned by four colour houses at their swimming carnival:

Construct a bar graph for the data.

House\text{Blue}\text{Green}\text{Yellow}\text{Orange}
Points60207060
17

The table shows the number of people who visited Disneyland between 2008 and 2012:

Use the table to create a bar graph.

\text{Year}\text{Number of people}\\ \text{(hundred thousands)}
2008158
2009155
2010155
2011157
2012160
18

The table shows the house points earned by four different houses at their swimming carnival:

a

Use the table to create a bar graph.

b

Which house earned the most points?

c

Which house earned as many points as the Yellow house and Blue house combined?

HousePoints
\text{Yellow}15
\text{Blue}25
\text{Red}40
\text{Green}60
19

A group of children are going to the shops and are deciding which shop to visit first. This table shows the shops the children like best:

a

How many more children like toy shops than sweet shops?

b

Create a bar graph to show the same data as the table.

20

The following table shows the number of major banks in each city:

a

How many major banks does Melbourne have?

b

Create a bar graph to show the same data as the table.

21

A poll was taken to find people's favourite cupcake flavours. The votes are shown in the table:

a

How many people voted for Chocolate?

b

Create a bar graph so it shows the same data as the table.

Pictographs
22

It’s "Back to school" time and a shop recorded the number of pens they sold in one week:

a

How many pens were sold on Wednesday?

b

How many more pens were sold on Saturday than on Wednesday?

23

A survey was conducted on how many people go to the zoo by bus every week. They recorded this data on the following pictograph:

a

How many people went to the zoo on Monday?

b

How many people went to the zoo on Thursday?

c

How many people went to the zoo on Friday?

d

How many people went to the zoo in total?

24

A high school did a student survey on how students travel to school. They recorded this data on the following pictograph:

a

How many students rode a bike to school?

b

What was the most common form of transport?

c

How many students caught the bus to school?

d

How many students arrived by car?

e

How many students are there in total in the school?

25

The pictograph shows the number of books a student read during each month:

a

How many books did the student read in September?

b

In which month did the student read two books?

c

In which month were the most amount of books read?

d

How many books did the student read altogether in December and October?

26

The pictograph shows the amount of cars a car dealer sold on each day of the week:

a

How many cars were sold on Monday?

b

On which day were 4 cars sold?

c

On which day were the least amount of cars sold?

d

On what two days were the same amount of cars sold?

e

How many more cars were sold on Saturday compared to Wednesday?

27

The pictograph shows the merit points received by six students in a class:

a

What was the least amount of merit points a student received?

b

Students who have received 5 or more merit points get to have a long lunch break at the end of the term.

Which students get to have this long lunch?

c

How many merit points did Victor, Eliza and Amira receive altogether?

28

The pictograph shows the number of visitors to a store on each day of the week:

a

How many visitors were there on Monday?

b

On which day were there 8 visitors?

c

On which day were there the least amount of visitors?

d

On which day were there the most amount of visitors?

e

How many more visitors were there on Sunday compared to Friday?

29

The pictograph shows how many glasses of water six students drank in a day:

a

How many glasses of water did Xan drink?

b

Who drank 8 glasses of water?

c

How many glasses of water did Conrad drink?

d

How many more glasses of water did John drink compared to Rebecca?

30

The pictograph shows the number of books a student read during each month:

a

How many books did the student read in December?

b

In which month did the student read 8 books?

c

In which month were the least amount of books read?

d

How many books did the student read altogether in November and October?

31

The pictograph shows the amount of hours a high school student spent this month doing homework for different subjects:

a

How many hours did the student spend doing Science homework?

b

Which subject did the student do 6 hours of homework for?

c

Which subject did the student do the most amount of homework for?

d

How many hours of homework did the student do altogether this month?

32

The pictograph shows the number of visitors to a theme park on each day of the week:

a

How many visitors were there on Sunday?

b

On which day were there 500 visitors?

c

On which day were there the least amount of visitors?

d

On which day were there the most amount of visitors?

e

How many more visitors were there on Sunday compared to Friday?

33

A survey was conducted asking people to choose their favourite type of pizza.

The following pictograph shows the responses:

a

How many people preferred BBQ Chicken?

b

What was the most popular type of pizza?

c

What was the least popular type of pizza?

d

How many people participated in the survey altogether?

34

A survey was conducted asking students what transport they used to get to school.

The following pictograph shows the responses:

a

What form of transport is used by exactly 18 people?

b

What is the difference between the amount of students who use the most common form of transport and the amount of students who use the least common form of transport?

c

How many people participated in the survey who don't catch the train to school?

35

The pictograph shows how many glasses of water six students drank in a week:

a

How many glasses of water did Xan drink?

b

Who drank 30 glasses of water?

c

How many glasses of water did Conrad drink?

d

How many more glasses of water did John drink compared to Rebecca?

Misrepresentation of results
36

Explain the meaning of the following terms in relation to misrepresenting data:

a

Cherry picking

b

Comparing apples and oranges

37

State the type of data manipulation described in each of the following examples:

a

There is a strong correlation between temperature and ice-cream consumption. Therefore rising temperatures cause higher ice-cream consumption.

b

75\% of a high school class surveyed said they like sport. Therefore all high school students like sport.

c

Asking an air traffic controller about his stress levels compared to a four year old child.

38

Lachlan asks 120 Year 12 students at his school how much time they spend on homework per night. 78 Year 12 students say they do more than 3 hours. At a meeting of the student council, Lachlan reports "65\% of students at this school do too much homework."

Determine whether the following statements explain why Lachlan's report is misleading:

a

The survey does not represent the population of the school.

b

The question should have been multiple choice.

c

The question was biased.

d

The sample size was too small.

39

A newspaper states: "Oil prices have risen by 33\% over the last two years." The article states that in 2018, the oil prices increased by 10\% and in 2019, the oil price increased by 23\%.

Determine whether the following statements are true or false:

a

The headline is true and accurate.

b

We need to know the prices to determine whether this statement is accurate.

c

An increase of 10\% followed by an increase of 23\% does not give an increase of 33\% overall.

d

A graph is required for more complete analysis.

40

An online company asks all its customers to complete a survey and 58\% respond. In the survey, there was a question which asked “How happy are you with our service?”. Respondents could tick either “Very Happy” or “Somewhat Happy”.

In their annual newsletter, the company wrote an article reporting “100\% of customers are happy with our service”.

Explain why this claim is misleading.

41

In the polls for an upcoming election, various polls are analysed to see who is likely to win the election. Most polls put Kodos ahead of Kang by between 10\% and 12\%. A few polls have Kang ahead of Kodos by a few percentage points.

Kang tells his followers that they are sure to win the election based on the latest polls.

Explain why this statement misrepresents the statistics.

42

In NSW, data collected on assaults occurring in hospitals showed that from 2006 to 2011, the number of assaults increased, from 2011 to 2014, the number of assaults remained constant and in 2015, there was a drop in the number of assaults.

Based on this, a newspaper reported “Assaults in hospitals have risen dramatically from 2006 to 2015”.

Explain why this statement misrepresents the statistics.

Misleading graphs
43

Determine whether the following statements, that describe how this graph might misrepresent the statistics, are true or false:

a

The wrong graph type was used.

b

The graph doesn't start at 0.

c

The scale on the vertical axis is not uniform.

44

Explain why a pie chart is inappropriate for the data shown below:

45

The pie chart shows the number of nuclear weapons possessed by each country:

Source: Time Magazine

a

Considering only the size of the slices (i.e. ignoring the numbers), which country has the largest nuclear stockpile?

b

Looking only at the numbers listed for each country, which country has the largest nuclear stockpile?

c

Has the pie chart been drawn accurately?

46

Consider the following graph:

Describe two features of this graph that might cause it to misrepresent the statistics:

47

Consider the following line graph:

Source: Brookings report on American education.

a

The bottom section of the graph has been cropped. Describe the effect this may have on interpreting the graph.

b

The labels on the horizontal axis are not evenly spaced. Explain why this may be misleading.

48

The Australian Labour Party released this graph after Tony Abbot was elected as Prime Minister:

Determine whether the following statements, that describe how this graph might misrepresent the statistics, are true or false:

a

The scale on the vertical axis is not uniform.

b

There are no European countries included.

c

It assumes that there are always an equal number of male and female cabinet members to choose from.

d

It assumes all cabinet sizes are the same.

49

Compare the following two graphs and explain which graph is misleading and why:

50

Explain why the following graph is misleading:

51

The following graph was shown on an Argentinian news service with the comment that 'Argentina's testing rate for Covid-19 is almost as high as that of the United States'.

Source: Reddit May 2020

a

Explain why the graph and comment are misleading.

b

Redraw the graph correctly.

52

Consider the given column graph:

a

Why is this a particularly poor example of a graph with broken axes?

b

Explain why it is not generally good practice to use a vertical scale with a broken axis for column graphs.

c

Describe a graphical display that would be better suited to this situation.

53

Consider the following line graph:

a

What feature is missing from the graph?

b

Explain why this might be misleading.

1
2
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5
\text{Month}
\text{Sales}
54

Consider the following line graphs of the same set of sales figures:

1
2
3
4
5
\text{Month}
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
\text{Sales} \left(\$\right)

Describe how the difference in scale between the two graphs might be misleading.

1
2
3
4
5
\text{Month}
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
\text{Sales} \left(\$\right)
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Outcomes

8.D1.3

Select from among a variety of graphs, including scatter plots, the type of graph best suited to represent various sets of data; display the data in the graphs with proper sources, titles, and labels, and appropriate scales; and justify their choice of graphs.

8.D1.6

Analyse different sets of data presented in various ways, including in scatter plots and in misleading graphs, by asking and answering questions about the data, challenging preconceived notions, and drawing conclusions, then make convincing arguments and informed decisions.

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