GCSE Charts and tables Practice Questions

Find the bar for Art

Look along the subject axis for the bar labelled Art. Reading the right bar is half of the mark here.

Read the scale on the vertical axis

Before reading anything off a chart, check what one square on the frequency axis is worth. Here the numbered ticks go up in equal steps, so the height of a bar is read straight off the axis.

Read the height of the bar

The top of the Art bar lines up with $6$ on the frequency axis, so there are $6$ books for Art.

Decide what "most common" means here

The tallest line is the number of goals that happened for the greatest number of matches — that is the most common value.

Read the height of every line

Read each line in turn: this says how many matches had $0$, $1$, $2$ and so on.

Pick out the tallest line

The tallest line is the one above $4$, with a height of $9$, so $4$ is the most common number of goals.

Read the height of every bar

Take each bar in turn and follow its top across to the frequency axis. That gives the number of emails for every category on the chart.

Test the statement "Thursday has the most emails."

Check it against the data ($\text{Thursday} = 13$). It is true, so this is the correct statement.

Test the statement "Wednesday has 2 more emails than Thursday."

Check it against the data ($\text{Wednesday} = 12, \text{Thursday} = 13$). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Test the statement "Monday has the fewest emails."

Check it against the data ($\text{Monday} = 9$). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Test the statement "Monday has twice as many emails as Wednesday."

Check it against the data ($\text{Monday} = 9, \text{Wednesday} = 12$). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Test the last statement and decide

The last statement does not match the data either. Exactly one statement survives every check, so the answer is "Thursday has the most emails."

Read the key

A pictogram is useless without its key. Here one full square stands for $2$ visitors, so a half square stands for $1$.

Count the squares in every row

Count row by row, treating a half square as $0.5$.

Turn every row into visitors

Multiply the squares in each row by the key of $2$.

Add the rows to find the total

A percentage is out of the whole data set, so the total of $25$ is needed first.

Write down the amount for March

The March row stands for $3$ visitors.

Write it as a fraction of the total

"$3$ out of $25$" is the fraction $\frac{3}{25}$.

Simplify the fraction

Dividing top and bottom by $1$ gives $\frac{3}{25}$.

Multiply by 100 to get a percentage

A percentage is a fraction out of $100$, so multiply by $100$.

Work out the percentage

$300 \div 25 = 12$.

Check and state the answer

$12\%$ of $25$ is $3$, which is the amount for March, so $12\%$ of the visitors are for March.

Read the scale on the vertical axis

Before reading anything off a chart, check what one square on the frequency axis is worth. Here the numbered ticks go up in equal steps, so the height of a bar is read straight off the axis.

Read the bar for Monday

The top of the Monday bar lines up with $5$ on the frequency axis, so there are $5$ cakes for Monday.

Read the bar for Tuesday

The top of the Tuesday bar lines up with $11$ on the frequency axis, so there are $11$ cakes for Tuesday.

Read the bar for Wednesday

The top of the Wednesday bar lines up with $14$ on the frequency axis, so there are $14$ cakes for Wednesday.

Read the bar for Thursday

The top of the Thursday bar lines up with $9$ on the frequency axis, so there are $9$ cakes for Thursday.

Read the bar for Friday

The top of the Friday bar lines up with $5$ on the frequency axis, so there are $5$ cakes for Friday.

Work out the total

Several of the statements talk about the total, so add all the frequencies: there are $44$ cakes altogether.

Note the biggest and the smallest bar

Statements about "the most" and "the fewest" can be settled straight away: the tallest bar is Wednesday and the shortest is Monday.

Test the statement "Thursday has 4 more cakes than Monday."

Check it against the data ($\text{Monday} = 5, \text{Thursday} = 9$). It is true, so this is the correct statement.

Test the statement "Thursday has twice as many cakes as Monday."

Check it against the data ($\text{Monday} = 5, \text{Thursday} = 9$). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Test the statement "Monday has the fewest cakes."

Check it against the data ($\text{Monday} = 5$). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Test the statement "The total number of cakes is 41."

Check it against the data (total = 44). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Test the statement "Wednesday and Friday have the same number of cakes."

Check it against the data ($\text{Wednesday} = 14, \text{Friday} = 5$). It does not match the data, so this statement is wrong.

Count how many statements are true

Exactly one of the five statements matches the data. If two had matched, the question would have been faulty — checking every option is what proves the answer, not just stopping at the first one that looks right.

Write down the statement that survived

Only one of the five statements matches the data, so the answer is "Thursday has 4 more cakes than Monday."