Chart assignment

Charts to read and discuss

Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.

  1. Which big banks get the most complaints for their size?
  2. How much rarer is each step up in earthquake magnitude?

Chart 1 of 2 · Consumer complaints

Which big banks get the most complaints for their size?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

Synchrony drew 164 complaints to the CFPB in 2025 for every $1 billion it held in deposits, the most of 23 of the largest U.S. banks that serve households, followed by Capital One (85) and American Express (63). JPMorgan Chase (9) and Bank of America (9), the two biggest, drew far fewer. Credit card lenders such as Synchrony, Capital One and American Express serve many customers for each dollar of deposits, so deposits are only a rough measure of size. Complaints aren't verified and count under the company a person names, often the bank's parent; Capital One's include Discover, which merged into it in 2025. Deposits are each bank's on December 31, from the FDIC.

Questions to discuss

  1. In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
  2. Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
  3. Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?

Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, with deposits from FDIC BankFind Suite (Public domain (U.S. government work; the CFPB publishes the database under CC0)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

Open the chart and its numbers

Chart 2 of 2 · Earthquakes

How much rarer is each step up in earthquake magnitude?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

In 2025 the world recorded 6,428 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 to 4.9, 1,983 of magnitude 5, 129 of magnitude 6, 15 of magnitude 7 and 1 of magnitude 8 or more. Each step up in magnitude is roughly ten times rarer, and releases about 32 times more energy. Countless smaller quakes go unrecorded worldwide, so the chart starts at 4.5.

How to read this chart

Each bar counts the earthquakes recorded worldwide in one year within a range of magnitudes. The bars start at zero. Each whole step up in magnitude releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 7 quake is far more than one step stronger than a 6.

Questions to discuss

  1. Roughly how many times more common is each band than the one above it?
  2. The biggest bars are hard to compare with the smallest ones on this scale. What other way could you show these numbers?
  3. The chart starts at magnitude 4.5. Why might smaller earthquakes around the world go uncounted?

Source: U.S. Geological Survey, ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat) (Public domain (U.S. government work); source U.S. Geological Survey) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

Open the chart and its numbers

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