To determine the change in population of a town over time, especially when you want to observe trends, increases, or decreases in the population over several specific years, it is best to use a line graph.
Here is why a line graph is the most appropriate option:
1. Visualizing Trends: Line graphs are excellent for illustrating how a quantity changes over time. In this case, you can clearly see the population trend from year to year.
2. Connecting Data Points: By plotting each year's population on a graph and connecting these points with lines, you can easily see the general direction of the population change: whether it is increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant over time.
3. Interpreting Continuous Data: The population data over different years represents continuous data, and a line graph is designed to display such continuous data effectively, highlighting the incremental changes or trends over the given time period.
In contrast:
- A bar graph is typically used for comparing distinct categories or groups, not for showing trends over time.
- A line plot is often used for displaying frequency of data points and is usually applied to smaller sets of data or simpler data distributions.
- A stem and leaf plot is used for displaying quantitative data while retaining the original data points and is most suitable for small data sets within a statistical context.
Thus, for the given data that tracks population changes over years, a line graph is indeed the best choice to represent the data effectively.
