Question

Spam Email spam is the curse of the Internet. Here is a relative frequency table that summarizes data on the most common types of spam:

(a) What percent of spam would fall in the “Other” category?

(b) Make a bar graph to display the data. Describe what you see.

(c) Would it be appropriate to make a pie chart of these data? Explain.

Short answer

Part (a) 7%

Part (b) Products, Adult, and Financial spam are the most popular categories of spam, whereas Leisure spam is the least common.

Part (c) Yes.

Step-by-step solution

Part (a) Step 1. Given information.

The given table is:

Part (a) Step 2. Find Other categories' percent of spam.

Other categories' percent of spam:

$$\begin{gathered} =100-\left(19+20+7+7+6+25+9\right) \\ =100-93 \\ =7\% \end{gathered}$$

Part (b) Step 1. Construct a frequency bar graph.

The most prevalent sorts of spam are goods, Adult, and Financial (as the related bars are highest), while Leisure (as the corresponding bars are lowest) is the least common.

Part (c) Explain if it is appropriate to make a pie chart of these data.

We calculate the percentage of spam for "Other" in part (a) so that the total percentage of vehicles is 100 percent.

Because the total proportion of all categories is 100 percent, and each category represents a portion of that 100 percent, a pie chart is appropriate.