ACT Reading Practice Test: Passages with Charts and Data
- Passages with Charts and Data
- 10 questions
- 13 minutes
This test has two original informational passages, each with a table, and five questions per passage. Some questions can be answered from the text alone, some from the table alone, and some only by combining both. Read the table title and column headings before the questions so you know what each number measures.
Tap an option to mark your answer. You can change your mind, or tap the same option again to leave the question blank. The correct answers and explanations appear when you finish the test.Tap an option to answer; tap it again to leave the question blank.
Your result
- 0 correct
- 0 wrong
- 0 blank
-
Question 1
Passage A: Social Science
This passage is adapted from an original report about a fictional town.
[1] When the town of Larkfield opened its first community garden in 2019, the town council expected it to be a small experiment. The garden occupied a vacant lot behind the old bus depot and offered twenty plots, each four feet by twelve feet, for a yearly fee. Within a month every plot was taken, and a waiting list had begun.
[2] The council opened a second garden in 2020 and a third in 2022. Each new site was larger than the last, but the waiting list did not disappear. Garden coordinator Ruth Amadi believes the list reflects more than an interest in vegetables. "For a lot of our gardeners, this is the only patch of ground they can use," she said. "Most of them live in apartments."
[3] Not every plot is used the way the council expected. Amadi keeps records of plots that are abandoned during the season, meaning plots that go unweeded and unharvested for more than a month. Abandonment was highest, she noted, in the year when many first-time gardeners joined, and it fell after the program began offering a spring workshop on planning a small garden in 2021. The workshop became required for all new gardeners in 2022.
Larkfield community garden records Year Total plots Plots held by first-time gardeners Plots abandoned Waiting list at end of season 2019 20 20 2 14 2020 52 33 9 26 2021 52 10 4 31 2022 100 50 5 22 2023 100 18 5 40 How many plots did the program add when the third garden opened in 2022?
Correct answer: C
The passage dates the third garden to 2022, and the table shows the total rising from 52 plots in 2021 to 100 in 2022, an increase of 48. The value 50 is the number of first-time gardeners that year.
-
Question 2
Passage A (see above):
Which two years in the table best support Amadi's claim that abandonment rose when many first-time gardeners joined, in which the total number of plots stayed the same?
Correct answer: A
In 2020 and 2021 the total was 52 plots both years, so the comparison is fair: first-time gardeners fell from 33 to 10 and abandoned plots fell from 9 to 4. In 2022 and 2023 the total also stayed the same, but abandonment did not change (5 both years), so that pair does not support the claim; the other pairs change the total.
-
Question 3
Passage A (see above):
According to the passage, a plot counts as abandoned when it:
Correct answer: B
Paragraph 3 defines abandoned plots as those that "go unweeded and unharvested for more than a month." The workshop is linked to lower abandonment but is not part of the definition.
-
Question 4
Passage A (see above):
Which statement about 2022 is supported by both the passage and the table?
Correct answer: D
In 2022, 50 of 100 plots were held by first-time gardeners, yet only 5 of 100 (5%) were abandoned, compared with 9 of 52 (about 17%) in 2020; that was the first year the workshop was required. The waiting list was still 22, so it did not disappear.
-
Question 5
Passage A (see above):
The 2023 data in the table are most consistent with which statement from the passage?
Correct answer: A
In 2023, after all three gardens were open, the waiting list reached 40, its highest value in the table. The quotation about every plot being taken within a month describes the first season, 2019, not 2023.
-
Question 6
Passage B: Natural Science
This passage is adapted from an original article about a fictional field station.
[1] Every spring since 1995, volunteers at the Pine Hollow Field Station have recorded the arrival of several migrating bird species. A first sighting can be misleading: one unusually early bird, pushed north by a storm, can make a whole year look early. For that reason, the station also records the date by which half of the season's total count of each species has passed. The volunteers call it the midpoint date.
[2] The station's records suggest that some species are arriving earlier than they did in the 1990s, but not all of them. Birds that spend the winter in the southern United States, only several hundred miles away, seem to respond to spring temperatures along their route, leaving sooner when the season is warm. Birds that winter in Central or South America face a different situation. They begin their journey thousands of miles away, where the length of the day, not the temperature in the north, is thought to be the main signal to leave. If spring arrives early at Pine Hollow, these long-distance travelers have no way of knowing it until they arrive.
[3] Ecologists worry about this mismatch. Many songbirds feed their young on caterpillars, and caterpillars hatch when the leaves they eat appear. If warmer springs make leaves appear earlier while some birds keep their old schedule, the birds may arrive after the food supply has peaked.
Average midpoint dates at Pine Hollow Species Winter range 1995-1999 2015-2019 Red-winged blackbird Southern U.S. March 28 March 19 Eastern phoebe Southern U.S. April 6 March 30 Wood thrush Central America May 10 May 9 Bobolink South America May 14 May 13 According to the passage, the volunteers record a midpoint date in addition to the first sighting because:
Correct answer: C
Paragraph 1 explains that one bird pushed north by a storm "can make a whole year look early," which is why the station also tracks when half of the count has passed. The passage gives no other reason.
-
Question 7
Passage B (see above):
According to the table, how did the eastern phoebe's average midpoint date change from 1995-1999 to 2015-2019?
Correct answer: B
April 6 to March 30 is 7 days: March has 31 days, so March 30 is 2 days before April 1 and 7 days before April 6. The shift of 9 days belongs to the red-winged blackbird.
-
Question 8
Passage B (see above):
Which statement is best supported by both the passage and the table?
Correct answer: D
The two southern-U.S. species moved 9 and 7 days earlier, while the wood thrush and bobolink moved only 1 day, which fits paragraph 2. The long-distance species arrive in May, after the others, and the wood thrush changed the least.
-
Question 9
Passage B (see above):
Based on the passage, the bobolink's midpoint date most likely changed very little because:
Correct answer: A
The bobolink winters in South America, and the passage says long-distance migrants leave mainly in response to day length, so they cannot sense an early northern spring. The bird's diet is never mentioned, and the bobolink winters thousands of miles away, not a few hundred.
-
Question 10
Passage B (see above):
According to paragraph 3, the mismatch that ecologists worry about would happen if:
Correct answer: C
The worry is that birds keeping their old schedule may arrive "after the food supply has peaked" if leaves, and so caterpillars, come earlier. A species that shifts at the same rate as the leaves would avoid the mismatch.
Questions you leave blank are not counted as wrong.
More Reading tests
ReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Sequence of Events and Cause and EffectSequence of Events and Cause and Effect10 questions12 min ReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Literary Narrative and Social ScienceLiterary Narrative and Social Science12 questions15 minReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Humanities and Natural ScienceHumanities and Natural Science12 questions15 minReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Prose Fiction and Paired PassagesProse Fiction and Paired Passages12 questions15 minReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Vocabulary in Context and Author's CraftVocabulary in Context and Author's Craft15 questions17 minReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Central Ideas and Supporting DetailsCentral Ideas and Supporting Details10 questions13 minReadingACT Reading Practice Test: Inferences and RelationshipsInferences and Relationships10 questions13 min