Question

Alyssa decides to collect the same information for the school cafeteria refrigerator. There are 250 items in the cafeteria refrigerator. Should Alyssa use a histogram or a dot plot to represent her data? Explain your choice.

Answer 1

Explanation:

Both histograms and dot plots are used to represent data. However, as a rule of thumb, we typically use dot plots when our dataset is small because it allows us to see exactly how many times each individual value occurs. Conversely, we typically use histograms when our dataset is large because it’s cumbersome to create a dot to represent every single individual value in a large dataset. Since there are 250 items in the cafeteria refrigerator, it might be better to use a histogram to represent the data.

I hope that helps!