GED Social Studies: Elections! (And Charts and Graphs)
Hey, all GED-studiers. You’ve seen a lot about the elections… it’s all over the place! Sometimes I feel like I can’t turn on the TV without getting hit by an election ad about something. Well, it’s important, too–because every day you see “financial crisis” in the news. (More GED social studies, because it’s all economics!)
One of the things that you see with all the election news, that’s also on the GED, is charts and graphs. There’s maps of the U.S. with red states and blue states, and all kinds of pie charts and line graphs, all trying to tell us what’s going on with the election.
Well, let’s see if we can make some sense of all the charts and graphs for the GED. Here’s a kinda complicated one, from a poll-tracking website called Princeton Election Consortium:
So, what’s this graph trying to tell you? The first thing I look at with charts and graphs is the labels. The left-hand side says “Obama EV”… I know from the website that what they mean is electoral college votes… and a presidential candidate needs 270 electoral college votes (that’s votes from different states) to win. So the red line across the graph is the number of votes needed to win. If the black line is above the red line, Obama wins. If the black line is below the red line, McCain wins. Pretty simple, right?
Oh, and the bottom of the chart shows months. That means, this graph is showing how the race has changed over time. You can see that in April and June, McCain seemed to have enough votes to win… now it’s switched.
So, what’s the gray area? Well, polls have a margin of error. That means, they don’t tell us 100% accurately how people will vote. So, no one’s 100% sure of the results. If you look at the graph title, it says, “95% confidence interval.” The gray area represents a confidence interval… the result will likely be in the gray area, with the black line being the most likely result.
This chart has one more element… some labels that show when different events happened in the campaign. That’s what I’ve got a GED practice question about… and here it is:
Based on the graph, which of the following statement best sums up the effects of the first debate?
1) The debate likely reinforced an upward trend for Obama.
2) The debate likely caused a decrease in Obama’s upward-moving numbers.
3) The debate likely had a similar effect to McCain’s celebrity ad.
4) The debate likely caused an upward trend for McCain.
5) All of the above.
So, what do you think? This is an analysis question, because it asks you to make an interpretation of the graph, but if you understand the graph (comprehension), you’ll have a pretty good idea of the answer. Let’s look at what happens on the chart.
First, you have to find the debate. It’s where the chart says “debate #1″. You should look at what’s happening to the line before and after “debate #1″. Before, the line is moving upward, in a sort of jaggy way (up and down, but mostly up.) What does up mean? It’s better for Obama, because it means Obama’s got more votes.
After “debate #1″, the line goes up a lot. Very good for Obama. So, which answer reflects this best? Answer 4 says the upward trend is for McCain, and that’s not right. It’s better for Obama. Answer 3 says it’s similar to what happened with the “celebrity ad,” but that’s not right. If you look at the chart after the celebrity ad, the line goes down, not up.
Answer 2 says the debate caused a decrease (a lessening) in the upward moving numbers. Well, the numbers were moving up. But they didn’t seem to decrease (move up less) after the debate. In fact, they seemed to move up more.
Answer 1 seems like the best choice. The numbers were already going up (an upward trend) for Obama, and after the debate they went up even more. That seems to show the debate reinforced (continued, made bigger) the upward trend.
Good luck with your GED! And be sure to get out and vote, to participate in some real social studies.
For more information about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at http://www.passGED.com.