Quizzes, exams, and flashcards about Data, Geometry and Trigonometry: PSAT Data and Geometry — units, bases and figures in words.
← PSAT/NMSQT
The smaller half of the Math section: Problem-Solving and Data Analysis, and Geometry and Trigonometry. Fewer questions than Algebra and Advanced Math, and more of them turn on reading than on calculating.
Problem-Solving and Data Analysis is the quantitative-literacy domain: ratios, rates, proportional relationships and units; percentages; one-variable data — centre, spread, and what an outlier does to each; two-variable data, scatterplots and models; probability, including conditional probability; inference from a sample and margin of error; and evaluating a statistical claim, including the difference between an observational study and an experiment.
That last pair is the part most often skipped and most often examined in a way that has nothing to do with arithmetic. A margin of error tells you how much a sample result might move, not how likely a claim is to be true. And a study that merely observed a difference cannot establish that one thing caused the other, however large the difference is.
Geometry and Trigonometry is area and volume; lines, angles and triangles, including similarity and the Pythagorean theorem; right-triangle trigonometry; and circles — arcs, sectors, central and inscribed angles, and the equation of a circle. A reference sheet of formulas is available during the test, so what is being examined is knowing which formula the situation calls for, not whether you memorised it.
Ten questions across both domains: ratios and unit rates, percentage change, reading a small data set for centre and spread, a scatterplot's line of best fit, probability from a two-way table, what a margin of error does and does not license, the observational-versus-experimental distinction, similar triangles, right-triangle trigonometry and a circle.
All data sets are invented and small enough to hold in your head, since none of the arithmetic is the point. Every dollar amount is written in words, never with a dollar sign.
Neither the real figures nor the geometric diagrams of the actual test are reproduced here — this is text — so for anything that depends on reading a drawn figure, use College Board's own practice.
