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Background: There are big marathons in spring, like the Boston Marathon, and there are several in the fall of each year as well. Runners in marathons are trying to run 26.2 miles at their fastest speed – often up and down hills, and through crowded streets. Three big fall marathons are the Marine Corps Marathon, Chicago Marathon, and the New York City Marathon.
Runner’s World magazine compiled the data for all of the people who finished each of these three marathons (so people who started but didn’t make it to the end are not included). They graphed the data on finishing times for the three big races, separately and combined.
Data Sources: Runner’s World, Nov. 7, 2013.
Questions:
1. Describe what the graph shows about finishing times in the three marathons.
2. I interpret the graph to mean….
3. What are the limitations of this graph? Asked another way, is there a better graph type that could tell you more about the data?
