A column graph is a graph used to display relative quantities of data in different categories. There is a wide range of topics where this type of graph can be useful. For example the number of tourists visiting different destinations in a month, the number of people with certain eye colours in a class or the popularity of the top ten YouTube channels.

Eye colour in a class

Column graph features to remember

Title the graph clearly
Label each axis
Label each category and give the vertical axis a clear scale
Make sure the columns are equal widths and equally spaced
Make sure that the height of the column matches the value it represents which is often the frequency of the category (how often that outcome occurred)

Use the following applet to explore creating a column graph.

Created with Geogebra

Practice questions

Question 1

Miss $Yen$ recorded her students' favourite pets in the column graph below.

A bar graph titled "Student's favorite pets" displays the preferences of an unspecified number of students for five types of pets: dogs, hamsters, birds, cats, and fish. The vertical axis is labeled "Number of students" and has a scale that goes from 0 to 15 labeled in increments of 5 and minor ticks in increment of 1. Each category of pet has a corresponding bar that indicates the number of students who favor that pet. The bar for

Hamster

shows a count of

6

. The bar for

Dog

shows a count of

7

. The bar for

Cat

shows a count of

4

. The bar for

Fish

shows a count of

8

. The bar for

Bird

shows a count of

11

. The count for each category is not explicitly labeled.

Which type of pet is most popular?
$Fish$
A
$Bird$
B
$Hamster$
C
$Cat$
D
$Dog$
E
Which pet is least popular?
$Bird$
A
$Cat$
B
$Fish$
C
$Dog$
D
$Hamster$
E
How many students picked a $Fish$ as their favourite pet?
How many students were surveyed in total?

Question 2

$John$ had $7$7 $blue$ marbles, $4$4 $black$ marbles, $8$8 $yellow$ marbles, $13$13 $white$ marbles, and $6$6 $red$ marbles. Use this information to complete the column graph.

Picture graphs

A picture graph is very similar to a column graph in that is displays the relative size of data in different categories. It differs by using using pictures or symbols to represent data rather than a column. Picture graphs have a key, which explains what each symbol represents.

For example the following picture graph displays the number of glasses of water $6$6 students drank in a week. In this case, each glass represents $6$6 glasses of water, thus, we can see that Conrad consumed $5.5\times6=33$5.5×6=33 glasses of water.

Practice questions

Question 3

It’s "Back to school" time and a shop recorded the number of pens they sold this week.

Day	Number of pens sold
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

Where represents $5$5 pens.

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

Question 4

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

The pictograph shows the responses.

What form of transport is used by exactly $18$18 people?
Train
A
$Bus$
B
$Car$
C
$Walk$
D
Bike
E
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?
How many people participated in the survey who don't catch the train to school?

Question 5

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

Cupcake Flavours	Number of People
Strawberry
Chocolate
Vanilla
Chocolate Chip
Banana

Where represents $3$3 votes.

How many people voted for $Chocolate$ ?
Complete the column graph below so it shows the same data as the table.

Outcomes

ACMEM037

interpret information presented in graphs, such as conversion graphs, line graphs, step graphs, column graphs and picture graphs

7.02 Picture graphs and column graphs

Column graphs

Practice questions

Question 1

Question 2

Picture graphs

Practice questions

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Outcomes

ACMEM037

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