A survey studied how many cars belonged to each household. Which data display (5) can help you ansyrer the following question How many households were surveyed?
The correct answer and explanation is:
Correct Answer: Frequency table
A frequency table is the best data display to help determine how many households were surveyed in a study about the number of cars owned by each household. This table lists all the possible categories or values for a variable (such as 0 cars, 1 car, 2 cars, and so on) and shows how many times each value appears in the data set.
For example, if the frequency table includes the following data:
| Number of Cars | Number of Households |
|---|---|
| 0 | 3 |
| 1 | 10 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 7 |
| 4 | 5 |
To determine how many households were surveyed, you would add all the numbers in the “Number of Households” column:
3 + 10 + 15 + 7 + 5 = 40 households
This total tells the researcher the number of households that participated in the survey. The strength of the frequency table is that it summarizes the raw data into clear counts that can be quickly interpreted. It eliminates the need to scan through individual responses and allows for quick comparisons of how many households fall into each category.
Other data displays such as bar graphs, pie charts, dot plots, and histograms may show visual patterns or proportions but do not always clearly show exact totals unless the frequency values are labeled. In contrast, a frequency table always includes specific numbers that make it easy to compute totals and analyze the spread of data. That makes it particularly useful when the question focuses on the overall count of observations, such as determining how many households were surveyed.