A dot plot would be most appropriate to display which one of the following types of data?

• A. The type of pet owned by each student
• B. The brand of smartphone owned by each student
• C. The favorite color of each student in a class
• D. The number of books read by each student in a class

Answer: (D)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Step 1: Understand the types of data given in the options. The first three options (type of pet, brand of smartphone, favorite color) are categorical data, which represent categories or groups without a natural numeric order.
2. Step 2: Recognize that the last option, the number of books read by each student, is quantitative data because it involves counting the number of books, which is numeric and can be ordered.
3. Step 3: Recall that a dot plot is most appropriate for displaying small to moderate-sized sets of quantitative data, especially when you want to show the frequency of each value clearly.
4. Step 4: Note that dot plots are not typically used for categorical data because categories do not have a numeric scale, and other charts like bar charts or pie charts are more suitable for categorical variables.
5. Step 5: Conclude that since the number of books read is quantitative and discrete, a dot plot effectively displays the distribution and frequency of this numeric data, making it the most appropriate choice.