NM-MSSA Data Literacy 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A scatter plot shows points scattered from lower-left to upper-right. What kind of relationship does this suggest?
- No relationship
- Negative correlation
- Positive correlation (Correct answer)
- An exact relationship
Correct answer: Positive correlation
Points trending from lower-left to upper-right indicate that as one variable increases, the other also tends to increase, showing a positive correlation.
Question 2: Which measure of center would be MOST affected by an extremely large outlier in a data set?
- Mode
- Median
- Mean (Correct answer)
- Range
Correct answer: Mean
The mean uses every value in its calculation, so one very large value pulls the mean upward significantly.
Question 3: A student reads a bar graph and says, 'January had exactly twice as many rainy days as February.' The bars show January = 10 and February = 5. Is the student correct?
- No, because bar graphs cannot show exact values
- Yes, because 10 is exactly twice 5 (Correct answer)
- No, because you cannot compare months on a bar graph
- Yes, but only if the bars are the same width
Correct answer: Yes, because 10 is exactly twice 5
10 ÷ 5 = 2, confirming that January's value is exactly twice February's value.
Question 4: What does the range of a data set tell you?
- The average of all values
- The most frequently occurring value
- The spread between the smallest and largest values (Correct answer)
- The middle value when data is ordered
Correct answer: The spread between the smallest and largest values
The range is calculated by subtracting the minimum value from the maximum value, showing how spread out the data is.
Question 5: A frequency table shows how many students scored in each grade range on a test. What does 'frequency' mean in this context?
- The highest score achieved
- How often each score range occurred (Correct answer)
- The difference between the highest and lowest score
- The average of all scores
Correct answer: How often each score range occurred
In a frequency table, frequency refers to the count of how many times each value or range of values appears in the data.
Question 6: A graph's y-axis starts at 50 instead of 0. What effect does this have on the appearance of the data?
- It makes differences between values look smaller than they are
- It makes differences between values look larger than they are (Correct answer)
- It has no effect on how the data looks
- It makes the data more accurate
Correct answer: It makes differences between values look larger than they are
Truncating the y-axis by starting above zero exaggerates the visual differences between bars or points, making changes appear more dramatic.
Question 7: Students recorded the number of hours they slept for 7 nights: 8, 7, 9, 6, 8, 8, 7. What is the mode?
- 7
- 8 (Correct answer)
- 9
- 6
Correct answer: 8
The mode is the value that appears most often; 8 appears three times, more than any other value.
NM-MSSA Data Literacy 3
A scatter plot shows points scattered from lower-left to upper-right.
What kind of relationship does this suggest?