Predict outcomes of additional trials or procedural changes using given patterns.
Extend the shown pattern, not your intuition. Use the trend in the passage and keep the rest of the setup fixed.
Core Idea
When a new trial changes only one condition, predict the result from the existing pattern under the same setup.
Understanding
These questions rarely require an exact calculation. More often, they reward reading the direction of a pattern and keeping the rest of the setup fixed.
- Direction first: is the result rising, falling, leveling off, or staying about the same?
- Change check: does the new trial alter only one relevant condition?
- Precision second: choose the answer that fits the trend without pretending the passage gave more precision than it did.
Use the shown pattern before you use intuition. If the setup stays comparable, the safest answer extends the observed trend. If the procedure changes two things at once, confidence in a precise prediction drops.
Step by Step
- Read the pattern: increasing, decreasing, staying about the same, or leveling off.
- Check the change: make sure only one relevant variable is being altered.
- Choose the most consistent outcome: match the trend, not a random middle value.
Misconceptions
- Trap: Ignoring the direction of the data trend and picking a familiar number from the table.
- Trap: Assuming the result must stay exactly the same when the new trial changes a tested condition.
Worked Example
A student tested how water temperature affected the time for an antacid tablet to dissolve. The average times were 180 s at 10°C, 120 s at 20°C, and 75 s at 30°C. If the student repeated the trial at 40°C using the same water volume and tablet type, which result would be most consistent with the pattern?
Select an answer to see the explanation