{"id":4684,"date":"2015-11-05t09:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-11-05t17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/?p=4684"},"modified":"2017-09-28t07:35:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28t14:35:00","slug":"act-science-finding-trends-and-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/act\/act-science-finding-trends-and-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"act science: finding trends and patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"
one of the most important skills you need to master for success on the act science test<\/a> is how to quickly and accurately determine trends and patterns in figures and tables.<\/p>\n imagine you see the following figures on an act science<\/a> passage (don\u2019t worry about understanding what they mean right now; you don\u2019t need to):<\/p>\n <\/p>\n now imagine you see a question like this:<\/p>\n between days 14 and 42, the percentage of patients testing positive for plasmodium vivax <\/em>after being treated with drug combination a:<\/i><\/p>\n a. increased only<\/i> what do you need to know?<\/p>\n well, first of all, you need to know what it means when lines slope downward or upward on a graph.<\/strong> we can figure this out by looking at our x-axis and y-axis. the x-axis (the horizontal axis) shows days of the study increasing from left to right, so the study is progressing in time from left to right. the y-axis (the vertical axis) shows percent of patients testing positive for parasites and the percentage values increase from bottom to top.<\/p>\n so this means that if a line is trending upwards as the days go on, then the percentage of patients testing positive for parasites is increasing, and if it is trending downwards, then the percentage of patients testing positive is decreasing.<\/strong> note that if we look at the drug combination a line for plasmodium vivax <\/em> (the one with the triangles) over the course of all of the days, the line goes down, then levels out at the bottom, then shoots up again. so this is why you might see answer choices on the act such as c and d in the question above (in this case though, we are limited to what happens between days 14 and 42, which is different than the whole length of the study.)<\/p>\n second of all, on these trend and pattern questions, you always need to make sure you are looking at the right figure<\/strong>. this is a common mistake students make on the act science test. if you neglected the reference to plasmodium vivax <\/em>in the question and looked at the first figure for plasmodium falciparum<\/em>, you might select \u201cb. decreased only\u201d for your answer. but we need to look at the second figure. now, if you correctly look at the second figure, but neglect to note that the question asks about days 14 to 42, you might incorrectly select \u201cd. decreased then increased\u201d because the line for drug combination a seems to do that over the course of the study. but if we look at the correct figure and the correct line and limit our scope to between days 14 and 22, we see that the percentage of patients infected increases only<\/strong>, so the answer is a.<\/p>\n trends and patterns questions might also refer to tables of data. in this case, you don\u2019t have lines to help you and you need to look at increases and decreases in the values in the table to help you figure out the trend.<\/p>\n so, imagine you see this table:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n and this question:<\/p>\n as the percentage of patients infected with p. falciparum<\/em> and treated with drug combination c decreased, the percentage of patients infected with p. vivax<\/em> and treated with the same drug combination:<\/i><\/p>\n a. increased only<\/i> this one might trip you up if you don\u2019t note one important detail: the chart shows \u201cpercent of patients free of parasites\u201d not \u201cpercent of patients infected.\u201d<\/strong> this is a common way that the act science test might cause you to slip up. so if we look down the column for patients infected with p. falciparum<\/em> and treated with drug combo c, we see that the numbers of patients free <\/em>of the parasite increase (this, therefore means, that the number of patients infected decrease <\/em>as we go down the column.) so we are looking to read the trend going down the column, not going up the column.<\/p>\n i\u2019d suggest drawing in an arrow there to keep it straight in your head:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n now we need to look at what happens to the numbers in the drug combination c column under p. vivax<\/em> as we follow the column in this same downward direction. we can see that the percent of patients free of parasites increases from 62 to 100 then decreases from 100 to 20. so this means that the number of patients infected<\/em> decreases then increases, so our answer is d<\/strong>. this might seem a little confusing at first, but it is a good thing to get used to, as this will pop up all the time on the test.<\/p>\n with all that in mind, let\u2019s try a similar sample question!<\/p>\n
\nb. decreased only<\/i>
\nc. increased then decreased<\/i>
\nd. decreased then increased<\/i><\/p>\nbut what if i’m not looking at a graph?<\/h2>\n
\nb. decreased only<\/i>
\nc. increased then decreased<\/i>
\nd. decreased then increased<\/i><\/p>\n