Question

Going to school Students in a high school statistics class were given data about the main method of transportation to school for a group of 30 students. They produced the pictograph shown. Explain how this graph is misleading.

Short answer

The various keys do not correspond to the same number of people who use this mode of transport.

The pictogram's widths don't match the number of people in the key.

Step-by-step solution

Step 1. Given information.

The given pictogram is:

Step 2. Explanation.

With the provided pictogram, there are two major issues:

The first problem is that different keys correlate to different numbers of people. Because each pictogram represents a different amount of people using this mode of transportation, it will look that an equal number of people are using the bus as opposed to cycling when we just have one pictogram for each.

The second problem is that the pictogram's widths don't match the number of people in the key.

The width of the automobile pictogram, for example, is roughly two times that of the walk pictogram, despite the fact that they both correspond to two people.