ACT Reading — a passage and its graph: what the data show and what the writer claims

Since 2021 one passage in the ACT Reading section may come with a graph, figure or table, and some of its questions ask you to put the two together: what the writer says, what the numbers show, and whether they agree. These questions belong to the Integration of Knowledge and Ideas category, which ACT describes as roughly a fifth to a quarter of the section. They reward a habit that is easy to learn and easy to forget under time pressure: read the axis labels, the units and the legend before comparing a single bar.

This material gives you five short original passages, each paired with a bar graph: a volunteer report on shade and summer heat in four city neighborhoods, a newsletter column about library borrowing, a bird-banding station's record of spring arrivals, a museum director's letter about free admission days, and a council member's letter about a new protected bike lane. Two questions follow each passage.

The questions train the moves the section asks for. You check whether a trend in the graph is consistent with the writer's claim, and notice when it is not, as when a columnist announces a steady decline that the bars show recovering. You read a scale correctly when a smaller number means an earlier date. You decide what a graph of percentages can and cannot answer, since a share of visitors is not a number of visitors. You test a claim such as "more than doubled" with a quick multiplication instead of an impression. And you separate an association from a cause: which added evidence, such as a comparison street that got no new lane, would strengthen a causal claim, and how a change in the way data were collected can create part of a trend on its own.

Every explanation names the numbers it uses and says why each wrong choice fails, so a missed question shows you which reading habit slipped. The flashcards review the same habits in short form: units first, shares versus counts, consistent with versus proves, and the comparison case that a causal claim needs.

The material offers a quiz and a flashcard deck. The graphs are simple bar charts drawn for these passages; the passages and data are invented for practice and describe no real town or study. The material is written for students preparing for the ACT and is not produced or endorsed by ACT.

  • Read a bar graph's labels, units and legend before comparing values
  • Decide whether data are consistent with, or contradict, a writer's claim
  • Distinguish what a graph of percentages can and cannot show
  • Test quantitative claims such as "more than doubled" with arithmetic
  • Separate an association from a cause and name evidence that would strengthen a causal claim

Practice material written by Zestly, based on ACT's published description of the ACT Reading section (reporting categories Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas; act.org, retrieved September 2026). All passages are original.

Sample question

Bar graph of average July afternoon air temperature in four neighborhoods of Harlan Falls: Oak Terrace 88 °F, Millbrook 91 °F, Riverside 93 °F, Depot District 97 °F.

Read the following article. In July 2024, volunteers in the city of Harlan Falls fastened small temperature sensors to lampposts in four neighborhoods and recorded the air temperature every afternoon. The neighborhoods differ most visibly in their trees. Oak Terrace, the oldest, sits under a canopy that shades roughly half of its streets; Millbrook shades about a third; Riverside, rebuilt after a flood, about a fifth; and the Depot District, a grid of warehouses and parking lots, almost none. The writer of the volunteers' report argues that shade, more than anything else, explains why some blocks are more bearable than others, and she urges the city to plant its next trees along the Depot District's widest streets, where she believes each new tree would do the most good. (A bar graph accompanies the writer's piece.) Are the data in the graph consistent with the writer's view that shade explains the temperature differences among the four neighborhoods?

See the answer

Yes: the average temperature rises steadily as the share of shaded streets falls, from Oak Terrace to the Depot District.

The article ranks the neighborhoods by shade: Oak Terrace (about half), Millbrook (a third), Riverside (a fifth), the Depot District (almost none). The graph ranks them the same way in reverse by temperature: 88, 91, 93 and 97 °F. So the two orders line up, which is consistent with the writer's view. Riverside (93 °F) was warmer, not cooler, than Millbrook (91 °F); the Depot District was the warmest, not cooler than Oak Terrace; and the graph shows all four neighborhoods.

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