Frequency Distributions and Histograms A frequency distribution is a summary of the data set in which the interval of possible values

is divided into subintervals, known as classes. For each class, the number of data values in that class is recorded; this is the frequency of the class. The relative frequency of the class is the frequency of the class divided by the number of values in the data set. An essential requirement for a frequency distribution is that the classes be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. That is, each value in the data set must belong to one and only one class. A desirable, but not essential requirement is that the classes have the same width. A histogram is simply a bar chart of a frequency distribution. For each class, a rectangle is drawn whose base is the class (on the horizontal axis) and whose height is the frequency (or relative frequency).