Understanding Misleading Graphs
A Grade 6 math worksheet to help students identify and analyze misleading graphs, focusing on common techniques used to distort data.
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Understanding Misleading Graphs
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Carefully read each question and analyze the provided graphs. Answer the questions to the best of your ability, paying close attention to how the graphs might be misleading.
1. Look at the bar graph below. What makes this graph potentially misleading?
The bars are not wide enough.
The y-axis does not start at zero.
The graph uses too many colors.
The x-axis labels are too small.
2. A company wants to show a huge increase in sales from $100,000 to $105,000 over one year. Describe how they could manipulate the y-axis of a bar graph to make this increase appear more dramatic.
3. True or False: Starting the y-axis of a bar graph at a value other than zero always makes the graph misleading.
True
False
4. When creating a graph, it is important to include a clear to accurately represent the data.
5. A graph that uses an inconsistent on its axis can make differences appear larger or smaller than they truly are.
6. Imagine a line graph showing the temperature change over a day. If the y-axis scale is very compressed (meaning a large range of temperatures is shown in a small space), how might this affect a viewer's perception of the temperature fluctuation?