Here is an Example

Let’s try to answer a simple question in analyzing the data before we proceed with the combined graphics and passage. Study the model below and answer the question that follows:

This passage is adapted from Tina Hesman Saey, “Lessons from the Torpid.” ©2012 by Society for Science & the Public.

Understanding how hibernators, including ground squirrels, marmots and bears, survive their long winter’s naps may one day offer solutions for Line problems such as heart disease. osteoporosis and muscular dystrophy. Nearly everything about the way an animal’s body works changes when it hibernates, and preparations start weeks or months in advance.

“Fat is where it’s at for a hibernator.” says Matthew Andrews, a molecular biologist at the University of Minnesota Duluth who studies 13-lined ground squirrels. “You bring your own lunch with you”. Packing lunch is necessary because the animals go on the world’s strictest diet during the winter, surviving entirely off their white fat. “They have their last supper in October; they don’t eat again until March,” Andrews says.

Recent analyses revealed that Scandinavian brown bears spend the summer with plasma cholesterol levels considered high for humans; those values then increase substantially for hibernation, Fröbert and his colleagues reported. These “very, very fat” bears with high cholesterol also get zero exercise during hibernation. Lolling about in the den pinches off blood vessels, contributing to sluggish circulation. “That cocktail would not be advisable in humans,” Fröbert says. It’s a recipe for hardened arteries, putting people at risk for heart attacks and strokes.

Even healthy young adult humans can develop fatty streaks in their arteries that make the blood vessels less flexible, but the bears don’t build up such artery-hardening streaks. “Our bears, they had nothing,” Fröbert says. lt’s not yet clear how the bears keep their arteries flexible, but Fröbert hopes to find some protective molecule that could stave off hardened arteries in humans as well.

Which statement about the effect of hibernation on the seven bears is best supported by the paragraph?

A. Only one of the bears did not experience an appreciable change in its total plasma cholesterol level.

B. Only one of the bears experienced a significant increase in its total plasma cholesterol level.

C. All of the bears achieved the desirable plasma cholesterol level for humans.

D. The bear with the lowest total plasma cholesterol level in its active state had the highest total plasma cholesterol level during hibernation.

To answer the question, we must read the information presented in the graphic, find correlations between the graphic and the passage, find evidence in the passage that supports data in the graphic, find data in the graphic that supports the passage’s claims, and make decisions about the graph’s relevance.

Choice A is the best answer because the graph shows that six of the seven bears experienced increased plasma cholesterol during hibernation; the seventh bear experienced neither an increase nor a decrease in plasma cholesterol.
In addition, this option supports the passage’s claim that the values are substantially high during the hibernation of bears as stated in lines “Recent analyses revealed that Scandinavian brown bears spend the summer with plasma cholesterol levels considered high for humans; those values then increase substantially for hibernation, Fröbert and his colleagues reported. These “very, very fat” bears with high cholesterol also get zero exercise during hibernation.”

Choices B, C, and D are incorrect because they are not supported by the graph.