Statistics
HW – Section 2.3
2.55 Support the court? In 2005, CNN reported the results of a survey about a Florida court’s
decision to remove the feeding tube from coma patient Terry Schiavo, effectively ending her
life. Figure 2.27 shows a bar graph of the data that CNN initially posted on its Web site.
Figure 2.27 Bar graph that displays the results of a survey about Terry Schiavo and was posted on the
CNN Web site.
(a) What visual impression does the graph give about support for the court’s decision?
(b) Make your own graph that displays the data in a less misleading way.
(Note: When notified about the misleading nature of their graph, CNN posted a corrected version.)
2.56 Lottery ticket sales, I Figure 2.28 is a line graph of the total lottery ticket sales(in millions of
dollars) in the United States from 1980 to 2007. What’s wrong with this picture?
Figure 2.28 Line graph of lottery ticket sales in the United States, in millions of dollars, from 1980 to
20
2.57 Lottery ticket sales, II Refer to the previous exercise. Draw a new line graph of the data
displayed in Figure 2.28 that isn’t deceptive. Describe what you see.
2.59 The rise in college education The line graph below shows the rise in the percent of women 25
years old and over who have at least a bachelor’s degree. Identify at least two features of this graph
that make it confusing or misleading.
2.60 Greeks on campus The question-and-answer column of a college campus newspaper was asked
what percent of the campus was “Greek” (that is, members of fraternities or sororities). The answer
given was that “the figures for the fall semester are approximately 13 percent for the girls and 15–18
percent for the guys, which produces a ‘Greek’ figure of approximately 28–31 percent of the
undergraduates.”26 Discuss the campus newspaper’s arithmetic.
2.61 Oatmeal and cholesterol Does eating Quaker Oatmeal reduce cholesterol? An advertisement
included the following graph as evidence that the answer is Yes.
(a) How is this graph misleading?
(b) Make a new graph that isn’t misleading. What do you conclude about the effect of eating Quaker
Oats on cholesterol reduction?
2.63 We can read, but can we count? The Census Bureau once gave a simple test of literacy in
English to a random sample of 3400 people. The New York Times printed some of the questions under
the headline “113% of Adults in U.S. Failed This Test.”28 Why is the percent in the headline clearly
wrong?
2.64 Online card games Figure 2.29 shows the number of people playing card games at the Yahoo
Web site on a Sunday and on a Wednesday in the same week.
Figure 2.29 A graph showing the number of people playing various card games at the Yahoo Web site
on Sunday and Wednesday of the same week.
(a) Explain what’s wrong with this graph.
(b) Make a more appropriate graph to display these data.
2.65 Poverty The number of Americans living below the official poverty line increased from
32,476,000 to 37,276,000 in the 10 years between 1998 and 2007. What percent increase was
this? You should not conclude from this that poverty grew more common in these
years, however. Why not?