What is the purpose of a histogram?

A histogram is specifically designed to display the frequency distribution of a set of continuous data. By representing data in the form of bars whose heights correspond to the number of occurrences (frequencies) of each range of values, histograms enable viewers to visualize how data points are distributed across different intervals or bins. This allows for an immediate understanding of the distribution shape, central tendency, and variability of the data.

While other options may pertain to data representation, they serve different purposes: showing relationships between variables would involve scatter plots or line graphs, summarizing categorical data is more suited to bar charts or pie charts, and comparing data sets typically requires the use of comparative bar graphs or box plots. Therefore, the primary function of a histogram is to effectively illustrate and summarize the frequency of numeric data, making option B the most accurate choice.