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© 2014 Pacific Crest
255
Step
Watch it Work!
1.
Title and legend Compares theft of cars in four different countries
2.
Identify graphic
type
Line graph with the points indicating the thousands of cars stolen in that year
for each of four countries.
3.
Identify variables,
units, and scales
The graph displays the number of cars stolen in thousands for the years
1990 through 1999.
4.
Identify
assumptions
We are assuming that the data is comparable across countries. This means,
1) The definition of
vehicle
is similar in each country
2)
Theft
has the same definition in each country
3) Data is collected the same way in each country
These are ultimately issues that we would want to check before relying too
heavily upon the graphic, especially as there is no source provided for that
data.
5.
Interpret
Great Britain’s car thefts have consistently been the highest rate per
thousand during the decade. Both Canada and France are relatively flat for
the ten years, while Sweden increased in rate per thousand and by the end
of the decade ended up being double that of Canada and France .
6.1 Interpreting Graphs and Diagrams