In Quantitative Reasoning you have about 40 seconds per question, and most questions start with a table, chart or short set of figures. Students often do the arithmetic correctly and still get the answer wrong because they took the wrong number from the data.
The five-step routine
- Question first. Know what you are looking for before you study the data.
- Find the row, column or bar that the question is about.
- Check the units — thousands, millions, percent, per week or per year.
- Estimate the answer roughly before using the calculator.
- Compare your calculation with the estimate and with the options.
Worked example
A clinic saw 240 patients in March and 300 in April. What was the percentage increase? The change is 300 − 240 = 60, and you divide by the starting value: 60 ÷ 240 = 0.25, so the answer is 25%.
Traps to watch for
- Percentage points vs percent. A rate rising from 20% to 25% has gone up by 5 percentage points, which is a 25% increase.
- Different scales. Two charts side by side may use different axis ranges, so a taller bar is not always a bigger number.
- Footnotes. A small note such as "figures in thousands" changes every answer.
- Totals. Check whether a table already includes a total row before adding the rows yourself.
💡 If two options are close together, recheck the units before recalculating — that is where most slips happen.