Tally Tables

Tally tables are a convenient way to sort an unordered list and present it in a frequency table without having to reorder the list. The list is to be sorted into class intervals, and for each entry in a class interval a line is written in a box. Each fifth line is written as a diagonal line through the preceding four lines. This makes the number occurring in each class interval easy to find.

Example; Put this list

12, 25, 33, 21, 4, 43, 43, 21, 37, 39, 22, 26, 41, 17, 28, 19, 27, 11, 6, 1, 7, 20, 47, 36, 8, 11, 13

into a tally table.

We have to fill out the table below.

The first length 12 results in I being written in the red box below and the second length 25 results in I being written into the blue box.

Continuing in this way we end up with the following table.

It is then a simple thing to fill out the frequency column.