Class 6 Maths Chapter 4 Data Handling and Presentation Extra Questions

Tally marks, pictographs, and bar graphs anchor this Chapter 4 question set, aimed at building comfort with organising raw data beyond what the textbook covers.

Last Updated: September 23, 2026

Very Short Answer Questions

Q1. What is raw data?
Answer: Data collected directly through observation or a survey, before it has been organised or arranged in any particular way.

Q2. How many strokes make up one tally bundle?
Answer: 5 (four vertical strokes plus one diagonal stroke across them).

Q3. What is the term for how many times a value occurs in a data set?
Answer: Frequency.

Q4. In a pictograph, what is the “key” or “scale” used for?
Answer: It tells you how much quantity a single symbol in the pictograph represents.

Q5. In a bar graph, should the bars touch each other or have gaps?
Answer: Bars should have equal gaps between them and be of equal width.

Short Answer Questions

Q6. A tally shows: ||||-||||-||||-|| . What number does this represent?
Answer: Each bundle of 5 strokes represents one group of 5, so 3 full bundles + 2 extra strokes = (3 x 5) + 2 = 17.

Q7. A pictograph shows 1 symbol = 50 books. If a library shows 4.5 symbols for Tuesday, how many books were issued?
Answer: 4.5 x 50 = 225 books.

Q8. A bar graph’s scale is “1 unit = 10 students,” and a bar for Class 6A reaches 4.5 units. How many students are in Class 6A?
Answer: 4.5 x 10 = 45 students.

Q9. Why is it easier to compare data using a bar graph than by looking at a list of raw numbers?
Answer: A bar graph presents data visually, so the relative sizes (tallest, shortest, and differences between categories) can be seen and compared at a glance, without needing to mentally process each individual number.

Q10. If a bar graph shows 5 bars with values 12, 18, 9, 24, and 15, what scale (in units of 3) would let every bar height be a whole number of units?
Answer: Dividing each value by 3: 12/3=4, 18/3=6, 9/3=3, 24/3=8, 15/3=5 — all whole numbers, so 1 unit = 3 works perfectly for this data.

Long Answer / Reasoning Questions

Q11. A frequency table shows how many matches a bowler took 0 through 7 wickets in: 2, 4, 6, 8, 3, 5, 1, 1 matches respectively (total 30 matches). Calculate the total number of wickets taken across all matches, showing your working.
Answer: Multiply each wicket count by its frequency and sum: (0x2)+(1×4)+(2×6)+(3×8)+(4×3)+(5×5)+(6×1)+(7×1) = 0+4+12+24+12+25+6+7 = 90 wickets in total across 30 matches.

Q12. Explain, using an example, why choosing an appropriate scale matters when drawing a bar graph.
Answer: If the scale is too small (e.g., 1 unit = 1), a data set with large values (like 1200) would need an impractically tall bar. If the scale is too large (e.g., 1 unit = 1000), small differences between categories (like 150 vs 200) would barely be visible. A well-chosen scale, such as 1 unit = 100 for traffic data ranging from 150 to 1200, keeps the graph both readable and appropriately sized.

Q13. A pictograph shows tractors in 5 villages using a scale of 1 symbol = 2 tractors. If Village C shows 4 symbols and Village B shows 2.5 symbols, how many more tractors does Village C have than Village B?
Answer: Village C = 4 x 2 = 8 tractors. Village B = 2.5 x 2 = 5 tractors. Difference = 8 – 5 = 3 more tractors in Village C.

Q14. A week’s sapling-planting data is: Sun=52, Mon=40, Tue=30, Wed=40, Thu=50, Fri=60, Sat=40. Find the average (mean) number of saplings planted per day.
Answer: Total = 52+40+30+40+50+60+40 = 312. Average = 312 ÷ 7 = approximately 44.6 saplings per day.

Q15. Would a pictograph or a bar graph be more suitable for showing the exact population of 6 cities that range from 40,000 to 12,000,000? Explain your reasoning.
Answer: A bar graph would generally be more suitable, since such a huge range of values would require an impractical number of symbols in a pictograph (even with a large scale, tiny values like 40,000 would round to a fraction of a symbol, losing precision) — a bar graph with a well-chosen scale, or even a graph using a broken/non-linear axis, can represent such a wide range more clearly.

Practice more: Solutions | Revision Notes for this chapter.

Frequently Asked Questions

If a class collected data on the favourite fruit of 30 students, why would a bar graph be more useful than a simple written list for presenting this data?
A bar graph visually represents the number of students preferring each fruit through bars of different heights, allowing immediate comparison, which would be much harder from a plain written list.

What is the purpose of a tally mark when organising raw survey data?
Tally marks provide a quick way to count occurrences of each category while going through raw data one entry at a time, making it easier to total counts and present organised data.

Written by Satish

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