Tag Archives: Data interpretation

ACT Question of the Day Explained – March 5, 2014 – Science, Data

Today’s ACT science question involves two steps: reading the provided text and reading charts. This is just slightly more complicated than the questions that ask us to read data out of charts.

In this experiment, a stick has been placed in the ground. The student who placed the stick then measures the stick’s shadow length and direction at various times over several days.

The question: When the Sun is at an altitude 45° above the horizon, a vertical object will cast a shadow with a length equal to the object’s height. Which of the following days included a measurement taken when the Sun was at an altitude of 45° ? Continue reading →

ACT Question of the Day Explained – February 17, 2014 – Science

Today’s ACT question of the day comes from the same science passage we saw about a week ago.

We are given a table of sediment concentrations at various depths that’s something like this:

Depth
(cm)		 Temperature
(oC)		 pH Concentration in sediment (ppm)
SO42– S2– CO2 Fe3+ Fe2+ O2
 0  4 7.0 7.0 0.0 1.0 4.0 0.5 2.0
 5  5 6.5 5.0 2.0 1.5 3.0 1.5 1.0
10  7 6.0 3.5 3.5 2.0 2.0 2.0 0.0
15  9 5.5 3.3 3.8 3.0 0.8 3.8 0.0
20 10 5.0 3.0 4.0 1.0 0.5 4.0 0.0

The test maker would like us to tell them which ion and dissolved gas will not be helpful in determining whether a sample was taken from either 15 or 20cm. Continue reading →