A figure is the technical term for a chart or graph. You will see references to figure 1.1 in formal academic and financial papers for example. Charts and graphs are more or less interchangeable terms. There are pedantic differences between them, but they're not relevant for your needs. Because it sometimes helps remember things I will mention it below, however.
There are several types of figure you might see. These mainly include pictograms, histograms, pie charts, scatter graphs and line graphs. Examples of these are shown below.
Figure 1: A Pictogram.
Figure 2: A Histogram.
Figure 3: A Pie Chart.
Figure 4: A Scatter Graph.
Figure 5: A Line Graph.
People use figures on the basis that "a picture paints a thousand words" - they make a convenient way to present a lot of data in a usually quite digestible form. You can overcomplicate graphs of course, but the data in you can always present a lot of data but spread it out over several graphs so it's relatively easy to interpret. Figures, in general, are good at showing trends and general features. Because of the way they are drawn some of the precision is lost, but that helps prevent people getting lost in the detail and not seeing the wood for the trees.
Interpreting data from a figure is sometimes hard. You have to make some smart guesses, but it is rarely asked. More likely you will be given a table showing some data and asked which graph displays it properly. There are two things here:
- Are the bars/dots etc. in the right places, do they actually show the data in the table?
- Is the graph or chart suitable for the data used?
Remember I said there was a pedantic difference between charts and graphs? This is where that comes up.
Charts, including pictograms and histograms display discrete data on one axis, or in the case of the pie chart, display discrete groups of data around the circle.
You can pretty much use any chart for any such type of data, although histograms are usually used if there is a logical order for the group (months of the year, days of the week etc.) whilst pie charts are usually used where there is no such logical order (car models or colours etc.).
Graphs (line or scatter) can only be used if the data on both axes is continuous.
Classic examples of this are a height and weight graph, or a profit/loss graph. You can measure the height and weight to any level of precision you wish, so the data is continuous, or the money as often as you like so it is continuous. In addition you can only use a line graph if the data are logically connected. This is usually connected over time - if we plotted your mathematical ability over this course we would hope to a see a graph sloping up to the right at your knowledge increases. We could join the dots for your level each week because it's showing your personal improvement over time.
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