Question

You suspect fewer customers are sending purchase orders to your company, although the dollar amount of the pos you receive has not changed. Which chart type can best visualize your hunch?

1) Bar chart
2) Line chart
3) Pie chart
4) Scatter plot

Answer 1

A line chart is the appropriate choice to visualize the suspicion of fewer customers sending purchase orders while the dollar amount remains constant. It's best suited to show trends over time. Bar charts can also effectively compare periods, but pie charts are not ideal for this case.

Step-by-step explanation:

To best visualize the hunch that there are fewer customers sending purchase orders to your company, while the dollar amount remains consistent, a line chart would be appropriate. This is because line charts are excellent for showing trends over time, such as the number of purchase orders, while also having the capability to display the value of those orders. A line chart can show a trend of decreasing order frequency but steady or increasing dollar amounts, which may indicate that while fewer orders are placed, they are of higher value.

Bar charts can also be used effectively, especially if you want to compare the number of purchase orders between different periods. In this case, the length of each bar would represent the quantity of purchase orders in each period, making it easy to compare across different time frames. Conversely, pie charts are less suitable for showing this type of trend over time as they are better at showing how a whole is divided into parts at one specific point in time.