What type of plot represents a probability distribution using bins?

The representation of a probability distribution using bins is achieved through histograms. A histogram is a graphical representation that organizes a group of data points into user-specified ranges, known as bins. The height of each bar in the histogram corresponds to the frequency (or relative frequency) of data points that fall within each bin.

This makes histograms particularly suitable for visualizing the shape of the data distribution, as they allow one to see how often different ranges of values occur. By displaying the data in this binned format, one can easily identify patterns such as skewness or modality (e.g., unimodal or bimodal distributions) within the dataset, making histograms a fundamental tool in exploratory data analysis.

Other options present different data visualization techniques not focused on probability distributions through binning. A Pareto chart emphasizes categorical data and displays the frequency of categories sorted in descending order. A box plot summarizes a dataset through its quartiles and highlights outliers, but does not use bins to represent the distribution. A pie chart, on the other hand, illustrates proportional relationships of categorical data as slices of a circle without providing a sense of distribution over a continuous variable.

Consequently, histograms stand out as the correct choice for representing probability distributions through bins.