Suppose you are shown a bar chart displaying the number of students in different majors at a university. Which generalization best describes the information provided by this graph?

• A. The graph provides information about the $\mathrm{mean}$ and $\mathrm{standard\; deviation}$ of students' ages.
• B. The graph displays quantitative data by showing the exact measurement of each student's $\mathrm{GPA}$.
• C. The graph summarizes qualitative data by showing the frequency of students in each category.
• D. The graph shows the relationship between two continuous variables.

Answer: (C)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Step 1: Identify the type of data represented in the bar chart. Since the chart shows the number of students in different majors, the data categories are majors, which are qualitative (categorical) variables.
2. Step 2: Understand what a bar chart typically represents. Bar charts are used to display the frequency or count of observations in each category, summarizing qualitative data.
3. Step 3: Recognize that the graph does not provide information about numerical summaries like mean or standard deviation, which are measures of central tendency and spread for quantitative data.
4. Step 4: Note that the graph does not show exact measurements of individual data points (like GPA) or relationships between two continuous variables, which would require scatterplots or line graphs.
5. Step 5: Conclude that the best generalization is that the bar chart summarizes qualitative data by showing the frequency of students in each category (major).