math section, there is a high likelihood that the next two
or three problems will refer back to that same graph.Bar Graphs
Slightly more terrifying, right? As we can see by the title, this graph breaks
down the fuel use by vehicle type: industrial vehicles (like trucks, presumably),
SUVs, sedans, and finally miscellaneous (like fuel-powered robot dinosaurs,
presumably). The x-axis is still time, and still in intervals of five years. The y-
axis is now percentage, and here is where bar graphs can be tricky. When we
look at, for example, the amount of industrial fuel use in 1995, we see that the
segment takes up a bit more than 50% of that year’s bar. It does not matter where
on the bar the industrial segment lies; all that matters is how much of the bar it
takes up. SUVs, for example, seem to take up about 15% of that year’s fuel. It
doesn’t matter where on the bar that 15% lies; all that matters is that it is 15%.
Let’s combine the two graphs to answer this very typical SAT graph question:
Between 2000 and 2005, by how many barrels did miscellaneous use
decrease?There are two helpful clues in this question, the word miscellaneous (which
points us to the bar graph) and the word barrel (which points us to the line
graph). So in 2000, we see that miscellaneous vehicles used about 25% of the
total. But what was the total? Let’s go to the line graph, where we can see that