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Problem of the Week
Problem B and Solution
Ingrid’s Vehicles

Problem

While waiting in a parking lot, Ingrid began counting vehicles. She discovered that there were \(22\) cars, \(16\) SUVs, and \(3\) trucks.

  1. Create a pictograph, a broken line graph, and a bar graph to represent this data.

  2. To best communicate this distribution, which graph do you prefer? Why?

    

Solution

  1. A pictograph, a broken line graph, and a bar graph are below.

    Pictograph:

    A pictograph of the vehicles in the parking lot. The key
shows that each vehicle image equals 1. There are 22 car images, 16 SUV
images, and 3 truck images.

    Note: The pictograph could be condensed by unitizing. For example, each image could be used to represent to two vehicles.

    Broken line graph:

    A broken line graph with horizontal axis is labelled with
Cars, SUVs, and Trucks. The Cars label is placed two units to the right
of the vertical axis, SUVs is placed 2 units to the right of Cars, and
Trucks is placed two units to the right of SUVs. One line segment starts
at the point 22 units above the Cars label and ends at the point 16
units above the SUVs label. A second line segment starts at the point 16
units above the SUVs label and ends at the point 3 units above the
Trucks label.

    Bar graph:

    A bar graph of the vehicles in the parking lot. The bar for
Cars has height 22, the bar for SUVs has height 16, and the bar for
Trucks has height 3.

  2. Answers may vary. The bar graph best communicates this distribution as it compares the numbers of vehicles most clearly and concisely.