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Finding Trends and Patterns

Kristin Fracchia
Lesson by Kristin Fracchia
Magoosh Expert
Summary
Success on ACT Science depends heavily on spotting patterns and trends in tables and graphs, because many questions ask you to interpret, predict, or compare data relationships. Strong performance comes from identifying whether values increase, decrease, stay constant, follow linear or nonlinear patterns, or show no reliable pattern at all.
  • Interpret basic graphs by tracking how one variable changes as another changes; increasing lines indicate rising values, decreasing lines indicate falling values, and flat lines indicate constant values.
  • Use extrapolation to predict values beyond the given data, but confirm the actual pattern first because some relationships are linear while others change by doubling or follow another nonlinear rule.
  • Use interpolation to estimate values between existing data points by locating where the missing point would fall on a graph or within an established pattern.
  • Recognize direct and inverse variation by checking whether one variable rises with another or moves in the opposite direction, and separate grouped trials when that makes the relationship easier to see.
  • Handle graph-selection questions through process of elimination by comparing overall shape, consistency, and key high and low points to the data table.
  • Stay alert for erratic data with no meaningful pattern, and avoid forcing a trend when the best conclusion is that no clear increase, decrease, or determination is possible.
Chapters
00:00
Reading Trends in Graphs and Tables
03:25
Extrapolation and Pattern Recognition
04:33
Direct and Inverse Variation in Multi-Variable Data