Question type
Completing a claim with data from a graph or table
In these questions every answer choice usually reports the graph or table accurately. The right one matches the claim's scope: the right group, the right years, the right comparison. Read the claim in the text first, decide what data would prove it, then find the choice that states exactly that.
A text makes a claim and is accompanied by a table or graph; the question asks which choice uses the data to complete or support the claim.
College Board's question bank has 65 of these. About a quarter are rated Hard, but they take time, so they are worth getting right fast.
- 65 in College Board's question bank, 26% rated Hard
- 62 practice questions of this type
Why students miss it
True but irrelevant. A choice can read the graph correctly and describe the wrong group or year.
Half the comparison. If the claim compares high and low elevations, a choice about one site alone does not complete it.
Reading the graph before the claim, and choosing the most striking number rather than the relevant one.
How to spot it
- A table or graph under the text.
- "Which choice most effectively uses data from the table/graph to complete the text / the example?"
The method
Claim first, data second
Underline what the claim says is true and for whom.
- The claim compares two groups
- the answer gives values for both.
- The claim is about change over time
- the answer gives the start and the end.
- A choice mentions a group the claim ignores
- rule it out, even if its numbers are right.
Two real questions
From the 1500prep bank, the way the app shows them. Answer first, then open the explanation.
| Population (elevation) | No frost | Mild frost | Hard frost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheeler Ridge (2,900 m) | 88 | 81 | 74 |
| Cole Basin (2,100 m) | 86 | 70 | 41 |
| Harkness Flat (1,500 m) | 90 | 66 | 29 |
| Trabuco Wash (900 m) | 85 | 59 | 18 |
Big sagebrush grows across a wide elevational range, and botanist Imelda Fuentes suspects that populations rooted high on mountain slopes have adapted to sharper cold. To test this, she collected seeds from four populations and germinated them after no frost, a mild frost, and a hard frost. The results support her suspicion: .
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?
Show the answer and explanationThe answer: the Wheeler Ridge population, the highest in elevation, germinated at 74% after hard frost, while the lowest population, Trabuco Wash, managed only 18%
Snowy tree crickets chirp faster as the air warms, so their calls have long been treated as a crude natural thermometer. Entomologist Mara Lindgren recorded crickets from three populations at five controlled temperatures and discovered that the relationship is not uniform: crickets from a cooler mountain population consistently chirped more slowly than lowland crickets at every temperature tested. For example,
Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph to complete the example?
Show the answer and explanationThe answer: at 24°C, the mountain population averaged 28 chirps per 15 seconds, while the lowland population averaged 36 chirps at that same temperature.
Questions students ask
How do you answer SAT graph questions in Reading and Writing?
Read the claim first and decide what data would prove it. Then find the choice that reports exactly that data; most wrong choices are accurate about the graph but irrelevant to the claim.
Do I need to do any maths in these questions?
Rarely. You compare values that are printed in the table or easy to read off the graph.
Practise this type until it is automatic
Five more graph-and-table evidence questions, checked instantly, with every wrong choice explained. Free, no card.