a. A gas station chain company wants to show customers where the cost of gasoline comes from by breaking down
the price into the costs for crude oil, refi ning, taxes, overhead, and profi t.
b. The economic development commission of a state wants to illustrate how workers compensation costs in the state
compare to neighboring states.
c. An electric utility wants to illustrate the proportions that different types of electric generation (coal, natural gas,
nuclear, wind, biomass, etc.) contribute to the company’s overall electric generation.
d. A wind turbine manufacturer wants to illustrate the growth of wind power generation from 2000 to 2008.
e. A real estate agent wants to illustrate the difference in average housing prices among several suburbs of a major
city.- For each of the situations described below, decide whether or not the choice of graph is appropriate. If it is, say so. If
not, state which of the three main types of charts we have discussed (pie, bar, line) would be the better choice.
a. Anita is planning to use a pie chart to illustrate how her company’s sales have grown over the years.
b. Baab’s Tree Service is planning to use a line graph to illustrate how the company’s charges for stump removal
compare to its competitors.
c. A company wants to illustrate how much each of its products contributes to the company’s overall annual sales. It
is planning to use a pie chart.
d. A utility company wants to use a bar chart to show its customers how its rates for electricity have changed over the
years.
e. An industrial economist plans to use a pie chart to a compare average hourly wages in different countries.C. Additional Exercise
- In Exercise 2, you created a column chart showing tax rates in different counties. (If you have not done Exercise 2,
do it now.) This chart served to illustrate the difference in the county tax rates, with its shortest column showing how
Chatakoin County’s tax rate is the lowest.
If you move your mouse over to the left side of the chart where the dollar amounts are shown along the vertical axis and
double click, this should open a box labeled “format axis.” Click on the tab for scale, and change the minimum value to
0.80. This will create a new chart, where the bottom of each column begins at 0.80 instead of 0.00.
Which version of the chart do you think that the county supervisor would want to use in her campaign fl yer? Why?
16.2 Measures of Average
Graphs and charts can be used to help summarize data in a visually appealing way, but they
are by no means the only way of summarizing data. It is also common practice to calculate
numerical values that can be used as a way to summarize and help draw conclusions from
data. Averages provide a familiar example.
If you are considering a career as a pharmacist and researching the salaries that
pharmacists earn in your area, you would not expect to find a listing of the salaries of
hundreds of individual pharmacists. Nor would you be able to easily make much sense
from such a list beyond maybe a general feel for how high or low the numbers on the list
seemed. A histogram might help make some sense of this data, but most people would also
be looking for information about the average pharmacist’s salary. Statistical measures are616 Chapter 16 Business Statistics