Today’s ACT question of the day is a science question about reading charts.  We have a pretty cool chart this time, though it’s a bit unconventional:

Image copyright ACT

The question wants to know what we would find at year 80.  We can see that this chart is a sort of timeline, so we need to find where year 80 would fall and then see what trees would be growing.

Year 80 is around where that tall pine tree with the thick trunk is sitting, about 2/3 of the way through the 25-100 interval.  From the bottom row, we can see that pine started earlier in this interval, and hardwood understory has recently begun as well.  The last answer choice matches this statement perfectly.

Don’t get thrown off by unfamiliar charts in the ACT science section – just roll with it, because you have only 5 minutes for each passage and there’s no time to stress about the weird things you’ll find along the way.  If it bugs you that much, you can always put it on your blog later!  (Just kidding.  Who would blog about the ACT? … … ….)