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ANSWER: VERTICAL AXIS DOESN’T BEGIN AT 0 SO LOOKS AS THOUGH HOUSING PRICES HAVE TRIPLED. This graph makes a truer comparison.
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MISLEADING GRAPHS
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WHAT IS MISLEADING ABOUT THIS GRAPH?
ANSWER: VERTICAL AXIS DOESN’T BEGIN AT 0 SO LOOKS AS THOUGH HOUSING PRICES HAVE TRIPLED. This graph makes a truer comparison.
WHAT IS MISLEADING ABOUT THIS GRAPH?
ANSWER: INTERVALS ON VERTICAL AXIS NOT EVEN . ALSO NO LABLES SO NOT SURE WHAT GRAPH IS TALKING ABOUT.
WHAT IS MISLEADING ABOUT THIS GRAPH?
This 3D bar chart might look very attractive, but it is also very misleading. There is no scale on the vertical axis and, because of the perspective, it looks as though sales for 1995 were far
greater than those for any other year. In fact, they were identical to those in 1997.The data would be better represented on a 2D-bar chart, with appropriate labelling on each
axis:
What is wrong with this pictogram showing the number of people who own different types of pets?
On this pictogram, there is no category for people who do not own a pet. The pictures are different sizes, and it appears that more people own a horse than any other animal.An improvement would be to redraw the pictogram, with each of the animals the same size and aligned with one another like this:
What is misleading about these graphs?
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SCALE IS TOO SMALL which makes it look as though Hot Dogs are the favorite food by 3 times over Pizza and 6 times over Hamburgers. If the SCALE IS TOO BIG, its hard to make a distinction as to which is the favorite!
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Look how small the scale is!!!!Also, it doesn’t begin with 0.
No wonder Gold stores are cropping up all over!
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Comparison is much better.
So, what are ways that a graph can be misleading?
SCALE IS TOO SMALLSCALE IS TOO BIG
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Pictograph pictures not the same size
3D MODEL CAN BE MISLEADING BECAUSE IT APPEARS THE BAR IN FRONT IS MUCH LARGER THAN IT REALLY IS.
VERTICAL SCALE IS NOT EVEN or doesn’t begin with ZERO.
To sum it up:
GRAPHS CAN BE MISLEADING WHEN:
• DOES NOT BEGIN WITH “0” ON THE VERTICAL AXIS
• VERTICAL AXIS HAS UNEVEN INTERVALS• 3D MODEL CAN BE MISLEADING• PICTOGRAPH HAS PICTURES THAT ARE
DIFFERENT SIZES• SCALE IS TOO SMALL• SCALE IS TOO BIG
WHY ARE GRAPHS INTENTIONALLY MISLEADING?
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