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Patterns and Relations
Day 2
At the end of this class you will be able to:
1) Identify whether data is continuous or
discrete from a table or graph.
What is continuous data?
Data is continuous if you can have values
between the whole numbers of something. That
means you can have decimal numbers of
something. Therefore, all real numbers are
possible data values. An example would be
distance traveled over time.
What is discrete data?
Data is discrete if you can only have whole
numbers of something. For example, if you are
ordering pizza by the slice, since the slices of
pizza can only be ordered in whole number
values as either 0 for no pizza ordered, 1 for one
slice, 2 for two slices,… then this data would be
discrete. We do not order 1.2 slices of pizza!
Right?
So, before identifying data as either discrete or
continuous where do I look?
If you are given a table of values…
look at the dependent variable (usually in the
right-hand column).
For example:
time distance In this case distance
depends on time and since
(hours)
(km)
you can have decimal
1
1
values of ‘distance’ then this
2
4
data would be continuous
3
9
data. It is possible to travel
4
16
1.2 km.
Cost
($)
0
1
2
3
Hot
dogs
0
1
2
3
In this case since you can only
have whole number values of
‘hot dogs’ then this data would
be discrete data. It is not
possible to have 0.3 hot dogs.
If you are given a graph…
Look at the dependent variable (labelled on the
y-axis).
For example:
In this case
since you can
have half sizes
of shoes, this
data would be
continuous. It
is possible to
order a 4 ½
shoe size.
In this graph
since it involves
only years as
whole number
values from
1900 to 1920
then this data
would be
discrete.
Do: Worksheet