Question

Students measured the length of several pencils and recorded their data in a table.

Pencil Lengths (Inches)
3
7
8
,

5
1
4
,

4
,

6
1
8
,

4
1
2
,

5
1
4
,

3
1
2
,

5
3
8
,

4
3
4
,

5
The students will make a line plot of the data. They will use only one fraction in their scale. They must be able to plot all of the data above a label. Which should this fraction be?

Answer 1

Explanation:

To determine the appropriate fraction for the line plot, we need to find the greatest common factor (GCF) of all the pencil lengths, and then express each length as an equivalent fraction with the GCF as the denominator.

The GCF of the pencil lengths is 1. Therefore, we can simply express each pencil length as an equivalent fraction with 1 as the denominator:

3/1, 7/1, 8/1, 5/1, 1/1, 4/1, 6/1, 8/1, 4/1, 2/1, 5/1

Now, we can see that the smallest unit increment we can use on the line plot is 1/8. This is because 1/8 is the smallest fraction that can represent all of the pencil lengths above the label (5/8, which is equivalent to 10/16).

Therefore, the students should use 1/8 as the fraction for the line plot.