NAME: __________________________________________ DATE: ________

IB Math Studies Year 1 – Creating Histograms PERIOD:______

Summary of Lesson 2-7

 What is a Bar Graph? A bar graph can be used to display and compare data. There should be spaces between
the bars. The height of each bar shows the frequency of each data value. A bar graph is commonly used to
represent discrete data.

 What is a Histogram? A histogram is a bar graph with no spaces between the bars. The height of each bar
shows the frequency of data within that interval. The intervals of a histogram are of equal size and do not
overlap. A histogram is commonly used to represent continuous data.
Histograms (no gaps) can be used with used to represent data values
with or without a range! See examples below.

WARM-UP: Express the following histograms as a frequency table!

 PRACTICE WITH TYPING HISTOGRAM DATA INTO THE CALCULATOR

1. The following histogram shows the age distribution of teachers who smoke at Laughlin High School.

5
frequency
(# of 4
smokers) 3
2
1

20 30 40 50 60 70
ages

(a) How many teachers are represented?

(b) Write down the modal class of the distribution.

(c) In which class is the median?

(d) Calculate an estimate of the mean and standard deviation of the ages.

 How do you enter the histogram into your

calculator to find the answers to parts (c) and (d)?
 PRACTICE CREATING A HISTOGRAM GIVEN A FREQUENCY TABLE

2. The following table shows the times, to the nearest minute, taken by 100 students to complete a mathematics
task.

Time (t) minutes 10 ≤ 𝑡 < 15 15 ≤ 𝑡 < 20 20 ≤ 𝑡 < 25 25 ≤ 𝑡 < 30 30 ≤ 𝑡 < 35 35 ≤ 𝑡 < 40

Number of 7 13 25 28 20 7
students

(a) Calculate an estimate of the mean time in minutes.

(b) On the following grid, construct a histogram to represent this data.

 TICKET TO HOMEWORK
3. A marine biologist records as a frequency distribution the lengths (L), measured to the nearest centimetre, of
100 mackerel. The results are given in the table below.

Length of mackerel Number of

(L cm) mackerel
27 < L ≤ 29 2
29 < L ≤ 31 4
31 < L ≤ 33 8
33 < L ≤ 35 21
35 < L ≤ 37 30
37 < L ≤ 39 18
39 < L ≤ 41 12
41 < L ≤ 43 5

(a) Calculate the following:

(i) the median length of mackerel;

(ii) the interquartile range of mackerel length.

(b) On the following grid, construct a histogram to represent this data.