Suppose you are shown a graph that displays the number of students in each major at a university using separate bars for each major. Which type of graph is being displayed?

• A. $\text{Boxplot}$
• B. $\text{Scatter plot}$
• C. $\text{Histogram}$
• D. $\text{Bar chart}$

Answer: (D)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Understand the purpose of the graph: it displays the number of students in each major, with separate bars representing each major.
2. Recall the characteristics of each graph type: a boxplot summarizes data distribution using quartiles, a scatter plot shows relationships between two numerical variables, and a histogram displays the frequency distribution of numerical data grouped into intervals.
3. Recognize that the data here is categorical (majors) with counts for each category, which is best represented by a bar chart where each bar corresponds to a category and its height shows the count.
4. Identify that a bar chart is used to compare different categories with distinct bars, making it the appropriate graph type for this problem.
5. Conclude that the graph described is a bar chart because it shows counts for separate categories (majors) using individual bars.