The short answer
A checklist for extracting the right information from figures fast — without the classic traps.
Written and checked by GAMSAT tutors — not AI-generated.
Try the reasoning style
We treat forgetting as a failure — a lapse to be patched with reminders and records. Yet a mind that kept everything could not think; it would drown in the undifferentiated noise of every moment it had ever lived. To forget is not so much to lose information as to decide, mostly without our noticing, what was never worth keeping.
The author's argument relies most directly on which unstated assumption?
Pick an option to see how the tutor reasons to the answer — not just whether you were right.
Not quite — the answer is B.
Work backwards from the conclusion: a mind that ‘kept everything’ supposedly ‘could not think.’ That only follows if thinking means leaving most of experience out — so B is the premise the argument quietly rests on. A raises reliability, which the passage never weighs; C contradicts ‘mostly without our noticing’; D smuggles in a claim about intellect the passage never makes. The question rewards finding the hidden premise, not recalling a fact.
Figures carry questions in both Section I and Section III. The candidates who score well aren't faster readers — they read figures in the right order and sidestep a few predictable traps.
The number-one trap
Read the axes and units first — before the shape. A "big rise" on a log axis or a truncated axis can mean almost nothing. Most graph mistakes are really axis mistakes.
A 4-step figure checklist
Axes & units
What's plotted against what, in what units? Linear or log? Where does the axis start? Then read the title and legend — they tell you what is actually being compared.
Overall trend
Up, down, peak, plateau? Is the gradient constant or changing?
The specific point
Go to the exact value the question asks for — don't eyeball the whole figure.
Trap check
Correlation isn't cause; an extrapolation beyond the data isn't supported; two y-axes can mislead.
Value or rate? They are different questions
"Which is highest?" and "which is rising fastest?" have different answers on the same figure — the first reads a point, the second reads a gradient. Decide which the stem wants before you look at the curve. The same discipline catches mismatched comparisons: check that the two things you are putting side by side are the same group under the same conditions the question actually specified.
Check yourself
From the solubility graph above, roughly how much extra salt dissolves per 100 g of water when you heat it from 20 °C to 60 °C?
Key takeaways
- Axes and units before shape — most graph errors are axis errors.
- Name the trend and whether the gradient is changing.
- Jump to the exact value asked for; don't read the whole figure.
- Watch for truncated axes, log scales, and unsupported extrapolation.
Practise this with real GAMSAT-style questions
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