Analyzing Data When New Information Arrives (IOD 505 and 702)

A figure gives you a trend: yield rises with temperature, activity peaks at a certain pH, concentration follows some pattern. A question stem sometimes hands you one more fact — a new trial, a conversion factor, a value for a variable not even on the graph. That one sentence doesn't throw out the figure. It tells you where to place a new point on the relationship you already trust. The question flips which answer is correct only because it's testing whether you'll actually use the new sentence, or ignore it and just reread the old data.

The mechanism is always the same three steps. Read the rule or trend from the figure first, exactly as given. Read the new fact in the stem second, noting what it changes: a new x-value, a scaling factor, a shift. Then apply the rule to the new fact, the same way you'd apply it to any other point on the graph. If the trend is linear, a midpoint input gives a midpoint output. If the stem says multiply by a factor, you multiply the tabulated value, you don't replace it with something unrelated. If the stem describes a second curve shifted from the first, you read the first curve's feature and shift it.

This sits right next to interpolation and extrapolation because it's really the same skill with one twist: the new x-value or new case comes from text instead of from the axis. It also connects to translating between figures and words, since the stem is doing in sentences what a second data column would do in a table. The new information is always consistent with the figure, never a contradiction of it — your job is to extend the pattern, not second-guess it.