Test your understanding of charts, graphs, maps, and data trends
The chapter states, "The Science and Social Studies GED tests both have goals involving interpreting visualized data. This means being able to read charts, graphs, and maps."
The chapter identifies three key skills: "Identifying trends in the data, Figuring out the story the data is telling, and Making inferences based on what you found out."
Line charts "are meant to show the relationship between two things. Time is often on the x-axis, and something else on the y-axis. That way, we can see change over time."
The chapter explains that "Similar to line charts, bar graphs show a relationship between two things. However, the bar graph wants to make groups of the y-axis data to tell its story."
The chapter states that "Pie charts want to show us percentage data. They help us compare amounts of things versus other things."
Scatter plots "are like line charts that compare big data sets or have things other than time on the x-axis. They help us see trends."
The chapter explains that "Maps want to show us data that impacts a geographical area. They show us variables over space rather than time."
The chapter states, "The biggest goal of these types of questions is being able to find trends. That means, looking at this visualized data and being able to interpret the story it has to tell."
The chapter explains that once you can find trends, "you will be able to make inferences based on these stories. That means you can guess what they might tell us about the world, or data that hasn't yet been collected."
The chapter emphasizes that "As with many GED concepts, the best way to get better at this is to practice. You should practice: Finding trends in data-vis, and Making guesses based on those trends."