Question

Who goes to movies?The bar graph displays data on the percent of people in several age groups who attended a movie in the past 12 months.

(a) Describe what the graph reveals about the relationship between age group and movie attendance.

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

Short answer

Part (a) The 18 to 24 year olds are the most likely to go to a movie whereas the 75+ age group has the lowest.

The bulk of those aged 18 to 54 appear to be going to the movies. The majority of those aged 55 and up do not appear to go to the movies.

Part (b) No

Step-by-step solution

Part (a) Step 1. Given information.

The given table is:

Part (a) Step 2. Relationship between age group and movie attendance.

We can see that the highest bar in the bar graph corresponds to the category "18-24," then the age group most likely to attend a movie is 18 to 24 years old.

And the lowest bar in the bar graph corresponds to the category "75 and older," then the age group least likely to attend a movie is 75 and older.

We can see that each of the bars corresponding to these age categories has a height of at least 50, and the majority of the 18 to 54-year-olds appear to be going to the movies.

Because the bar corresponding to these age categories has a height of less than 50, it appears that the majority of the 55+-year-olds do not attend a movie.

Part (b) Step 1. Explanation.

In the bar graph, we can see that 74 percent of 18-24-year-olds, 65 percent of 25-34-year-olds, 60 percent of 35-44-year-olds, 52 percent of 45-54-year-olds, 47 percent of 55-64-year-olds, 30 percent of 65 75-year-olds, and 18 percent of 75+-year-olds go to the movies.

If we sum all of these percentages together, we get more than 100 percent, making a pie chart inappropriate.

Furthermore, because the different bars do not reflect a part of the same whole (as each age category is analyzed independently), a pie chart is not appropriate.