Question

a newspaper article claimed that the afternoon hours were the worst in terms of robberies and provided the graph to the right in support of this claim. explain how this graph is misleading. choose the correct answer below. \\(\bigcirc\\) a. the vertical axis has no units. this can mislead readers into thinking that the percentages are actually counts. \\(\bigcirc\\) b. not all of the time intervals are the same size. redistributing the time interval so they are all the same size may lead to a different shape. \\(\bigcirc\\) c. all of the bars are the same color, so they tend to blend visually with each other. this makes the graph hard to read. \\(\bigcirc\\) d. the vertical axis stops at 25%. it should go all the way up to 100% to accurately show percentage data.

Explanation:

To determine why the graph is misleading, we analyze each option:

• Option A: The vertical axis issue (units) isn't the main mislead here.
• Option B: The time intervals (e.g., "6a - 9a", "9a - 12p" are 3 - hour, but "12p - 6p" is 6 - hour, others? ) are not all the same size. When time intervals in a bar graph (for hourly crime distribution) have different widths, the visual impression of the data is distorted. Redistributing them to equal - size intervals would likely change the graph's shape, making the original graph misleading.
• Option C: Bar color doesn't make the graph misleading in terms of the claim about afternoon robberies.
• Option D: The vertical axis for percentage doesn't need to go to 100% as it's showing the distribution (percentage of robberies in each interval), not the total.

Answer:

B. Not all of the time intervals are the same size. Redistributing the time interval so they are all the same size may lead to a different shape.