A bakery's sign says the average pay is $49,000 a year, and every worker there earns less. Nobody lied, and the sign is still misleading.
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By the end of this lesson your student should be able to check where a graph's scale starts, compare the mean with the median when a data set has an outlier, ask who was counted, and say which number gives the fairest picture.
🚨 Believing that a misleading statistic must be a lie. Every number in this lesson is true, and the picture it leaves in your head is the problem.
Judging a bar graph by how tall the bars look and not by the numbers on the side.
Thinking the mean is always the best average. With an outlier in the data, the median is usually fairer.
Have the student bring in one ad or one graph from a magazine or a website and run it through the three questions. Finding a real one is the surest way to make the habit stick.
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Before You Start
The words this lesson uses. Tap a card to see what it means, then come back to them whenever a question uses one.
Part One
Questions about the story you just read. Pick your answer straight off, or press Find it in the story if you would rather hunt for the sentence first.
Part Two
The word cards are at the top of this page. Look back at them as often as you need, then answer.