Histograms and bar graphs look a lot alike

Paper instructions

1. Histograms and bar graphs look a lot alike. One key difference is that the width of a bar in a bar graph is meaningless, while the width of a bar in a histogram corresponds to the values it represents. The width of a bar in a histogram is often called a “bin width.” Bins should always be the same size in a histogram, but otherwise it is up to the researcher to choose a bin width that will accurately represent their data in the histogram.

Consider this sample of rainfall, in inches, in Seattle from 2002 to 2017 (real data). If you were making a histogram of this data, what would you set the bin width to and why?

2.43, 2.27, 0.97, 2.19, 0.24, 4.5, 2.23, 2.44, 1.04, 0.15, 2.63, 0.6, 2.96, 2.85, 0.88, 2.04, 0.22, 3.11, 3.19, 3.57, 7.66, 0.07, 4.97, 3.5, 8.79, 5.28, 5.06, 5.59, 1.28, 6.09, 0.5, 3.51, 6.05, 0.34, 4.24

3.Respond to one of the following prompts:

In New York City, the mean annual income is $97,647, while the median annual income is $60,762. What does this tell you about the distribution of income in the city? What would a histogram of this variable look like?
Use the NYC Population FactFinder to determine the mean and median income in a neighborhood you are interested in.* What are the two values? What does this tell you about the distribution of income in the neighborhood? What would a histogram of this variable look like?
*To do this, click the link and make sure to set the map to “neighborhood.” You can then move the map or search by address to locate a neighborhood you are interested in; click the neighborhood to select it and then click “View Profile.” Change the tab to “economic” and scroll down to “Income and Benefits.”

4.Your GPA is an arithmetic mean; it’s calculated by assigning a score to each letter grade, multiplying the score times the number of credits for that class, adding those products together, and dividing by the number of credits taken. Now that you’ve had a chance to think in depth about measures of central tendency and spread, do you think your average GPA alone is the best numerical representation of your academic performance? What other measures (mode, median, standard deviation, inter-quartile range) should or could be taken into account? Please explain your reasoning for your answer.