150 6 Core: Statistics

6C Presenting data
An alternative to summarizing a data set by numerical values such as an average and a
measure of dispersion is to represent the data graphically.
There are several ways this can be done.

■■ Histograms
A histogram uses the height of each bar to represent the frequency of each group from a
frequency table.
While it looks much like a bar chart, the difference is that the horizontal scale is
continuous for a histogram, whereas there will be gaps between the bars in a bar chart,
which is used for discrete data.

WORKED EXAMPLE 6.16

Using technology, or otherwise, plot a histogram for the following data.

x 10 < x  20 20 < x  30 30 < x  40 40 < x  50

Frequency 16 10 18 14

20

The width of each bar is the

width of the corresponding 15
group in the frequency table
and the height of each bar is
the frequency of that group 10

0 x
0 10 20 30 40 50

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 6C Presenting data 151

WORKED EXAMPLE 6.17

f
For the histogram on the right estimate the
number of items which have x values between 20
15 and 35.
15

10

0 x
0 10 20 30 40 50

You need half the frequency Number of values between 25 and 35

of the 10  x  20 group, all ≈ 5 + 12 + 8 = 25
of the 20  x  30 group and
half of the 30  x  40 group

■■ Cumulative frequency graphs

The cumulative frequency is the number of values that are less than or equal to a given
point in the data set.
A cumulative frequency graph is a plot of cumulative frequency (on the y-axis) against
the data values (on the x-axis). When working from a grouped frequency table, take the
x value at the upper boundary.

WORKED EXAMPLE 6.18

Construct a cumulative frequency diagram for the following data.

x 10 < x  20 20 < x  30 30 < x  40 40 < x  50

Frequency 10 12 16 12

The x values in the cumulative

frequency table are the upper x 23 30 40 50
boundaries of each group Cumulative frequency 10 12 38 50

f
50

40
Plot the cumulative frequency
values against the x values in
30
the cumulative frequency table

20

10

0 x
0 10 20 30 40 50

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 152 6 Core: Statistics

Using cumulative frequency graphs to find medians, quartiles,

percentiles, range and interquartile range
One of the main purposes of a cumulative frequency graph is to estimate the median
and interquartile range.
The median and quartiles are particular examples of percentiles, which are points that
are a particular percentage of the way through the data set. The median is the 50th
percentile, and the lower quartile the 25th percentile.

WORKED EXAMPLE 6.19

Use the cumulative frequency graph f
on the right to estimate:
100
a the median
b the range
80
c the interquartile range
d the 90th percentile.
60

40

20

0 x
0 10 20 30 40 50

100

The total frequency is 100, so

80
draw lines across from the vertical
axis at the following points.
50 for the median. 60
25 for Q1.
75 for Q3.
90 for the 90th percentile. 40
Then trace these lines down
from the curve to the x-axis
20

0 x
0 10 20 30 40 50

a Median ≈ 19
The largest value in the data set could
b Range ≈ 50
be 50 and the smallest could be 0
c Q1 ≈ 15 and Q3 ≈ 26
So, IQR ≈ 26 − 15 = 11
d 90th percentile ≈ 34

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 6C Presenting data 153

■■ Box-and-whisker diagrams
A box-and-whisker diagram represents five key pieces of information about a data set:
■ the smallest value
■ the lower quartile
■ the median
■ the upper quartile
■ the largest value.

This excludes outliers – they are represented with crosses.

WORKED EXAMPLE 6.20

Construct a box-and-whisker diagram for the following data:
3, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9, 11, 15, 20.

Use the GDC to find Q1, Q3 and the median

Check to see if there are any outliers x is an outlier if

x  7 − 1.5(11 − 7)
x 1
or if
x  11 + 1.5(11 − 7)
x  17
So, x = 20 is an outlier

The minimum value is 3. As 20 is an outlier,

you need to mark it with a cross
3 78 11 15 20

x
0 5 10 15 20 25

You can use normal box-and-whisker plots to check whether data might plausibly be
normally distributed. You will do this in Chapter 8.

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