Pictorial Representation of Data (F)

Data is all around us, and with computers becoming faster and more powerful it is easy for systems to gather lots and lots of data. But what do you do with it, and how can you make it meaningful? Data represented in a meaningful diagram can be understood much easier, and quicker, than if it was presented in a table of figures. It takes a bit of skill and practise to know which diagram will send the message you want people to see. Test your skills in this GCSE Maths quiz!

It is easy to put your data into every diagram you know of, and end up with a bar chart, pie chart, stem and leaf diagram, frequency polygon and pictogram, but what information would each one give? Pie charts are good at showing the proportion of each category, but they don’t easily show the actual numbers involved.