Line Plots

Let’s practice using line plots to represent data!

The robotics club president asked each student how many robots they have at home. The answers were four, six, seven, nine, seven, four, eight, and seven robots.

Let’s represent this data on a line plot.

Arrange the data in a frequency table from smallest number of robots to largest. Add the number of students with that count of robots beside it. Two students said they had four robots, so write a two. Keep adding the number of students for each robot count.

[A table appears with the left column labeled “Number of Robots” and the right column labeled “Number of Students.” The table is filled in from left to right with the following pairs: 4 and 2, 6 and 1, 7 and 3, 8 and 1, and 9 and 1.]

Now, draw an empty line plot.

Label the tick marks from the smallest number to the largest.

[A line plot appears with tick marks from left to right labeled 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.]

Now, make a mark for each value. There are two fours, so make two marks above four. There is one six, so make one mark above six.

There are three sevens, so make three marks above seven. There is one eight and one nine, so they each only get one mark above them.

Using the line plot, you can see that seven robots was the most common number. [The tick labeled 7 is highlighted, showing three marks above it.] No students had five robots, though!

Line plots are a useful way to quickly view data. Keep practicing your line plotting skills!