Scatter plots worksheets

A scatter plot puts two measurements against each other and asks what the cloud of points is doing. These free printable worksheets give the plot and ask for the direction, the shape, and whether there is any association at all.

Kid stuck on one? You don’t just get the sheet.

Scatter plots
Scatter plots worksheet — Direction, shape, association, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

The three answers are a small vocabulary and each has to be earned. Direction is positive when the points rise to the right and negative when they fall. Shape is linear when they lie roughly along a line and non-linear when they bend. Association can be none at all, and "no association" is an answer worth being comfortable giving.

Why this sheet works

Every plot here is a real pair of quantities — practice time against test score, age of a car against its price — because the reason the question matters is what it lets you say afterwards. A negative association between age and price is a sentence about cars, not about the graph.

How this one works

One question from this sheet, worked through a step at a time.

Is the pattern linear or nonlinear?

Hours practicedvsScore
Is the pattern linear or nonlinear?
linear
linear
  1. A scatter plot puts two measurements against each other: Hours practiced along the bottom, Score up the side, and one dot for each thing measured. There is no single dot to read off — every question here is about what the whole cloud is doing.
  2. Shape is about whether a straight line would follow the points, or whether they bend away from one. Sketch a line through the middle of the cloud with a finger and see.
  3. The points stay close to that straight line all the way along, so the pattern is LINEAR.
  4. So the answer is "linear". Say what that means for the two things rather than for the graph — and remember it is not a claim that one CAUSES the other. Two measurements can move together for a reason that is nothing to do with either of them.