EXAMPLE 6 Working with tabular data

Table 8 is a crosstabulation showing the SAT Writing exam score for females and males in 2014. Note that the data are not presented in raw form, such as the automobiles in Table 6. Instead, the frequencies for each cell have been presented. Use Table 8 to construct the following:

  1. Frequency distribution of the Gender of SAT Writing exam takers, for females and males
  2. Frequency bar graph of the Gender of SAT Writing exam takers, for females and males
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Table 2.8: Table 8 Each cell represents the number of 2014 SAT Writing exam takers who scored in the given range, by gender.
SAT Writing score
Gender 200–390 400–590 600–800 Total
Female 169,314 550,172 164,469 883,955
Male 178,606 464,949 132,537 776,092
Total 347,920 1,015,121 297,006 1,660,047
Table 2.8: Source: The College Board.

Solution

  1. The total column on the right-hand side of Table 8 provides us with the frequency distribution, which is shown in Table 9.
    Table 2.9: Table 9 Frequency distribution of SAT Writing exam takers across the genders
    Gender Frequency
    Female 883,955
    Male 776,092
    Total 1,660,047
  2. We use the frequency distribution in Table 9 to produce the bar graph shown in Figure 4.

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Figure 2.4: FIGURE 4 Bar graph of Gender of SAT Writing exam takers.

We work with the tabular data in Table 8 to construct further graphs and distributions in the exercises.

NOW YOU CAN DO

Exercises 22, 38–40, 42–44, and 46–56.