5.3 Visual & Numerical Information in Academic Text

Visual and numerical information as an AL skill

Official NBT AQL descriptions of Academic Literacy include the ability to interpret information presented in diagrams, tables, and flow-charts and to understand basic numerical concepts in text. This is still AL: the test checks whether you can read multimodal academic discourse. It is not the same as the full Quantitative Literacy (QL) domain, which goes deeper into calculation, ratios, and data analysis without a calculator. Here, numbers and visuals support comprehension of a passage.

Expect items such as:

• “According to the table, which campus had the highest…”
• “The flow-chart indicates that a student who fails Step 2 must…”
• “In paragraph 2, the figure 18% refers to…”
• “Which statement is supported by both the graph and the writer’s comment?”

Reading a table inside a passage

Academic tables are compressed arguments. Read them in a fixed order:

1. Title / caption — what universe of data is claimed?
2. Column and row headers — categories and measures.
3. Units — people, rand, percentages, hours, tonnes.
4. Notes — “preliminary,” “n = 120,” “excluding part-time.”
5. Prose link — what claim does the writer make about the table?

Invented table: Residence Wi-Fi complaints, fictional Riverbend University, Term 1

Invented prose beneath the table. “Although Cedar logged the most complaints, its helpdesk cleared a higher share within two days than Baobab or Daisy. Daisy’s low volume did not mean high efficiency: average response stretched to 40 hours.”

AL reading points:

• “Most complaints” → Cedar (55), not “worst service.”
• Speed/efficiency → look at response time and % resolved, not volume alone.
• The writer’s although signals a contrast between volume and performance — a cohesion cue working with the table.

Charts embedded in text

When a bar or line chart appears (or is described), recover:

• What is on each axis?
• What does each bar/line represent?
• Is the scale truncated? (AL rarely requires deep scale critique, but do not invent values the graphic does not show.)
• Does the writer overclaim? (“doubled” vs a rise from 10% to 12%)

Invented description of a bar chart in a passage. “Figure 2 compares first-year library visits per student in March across four faculties. Education averaged 6 visits; Engineering 4; Humanities 9; Commerce 5.” An AL item might ask which faculty’s students visited most → Humanities. A trap option might say Engineering because “engineers study harder” — that invents content not in the figure.

Flow-charts: sequence and decisions

Flow-charts show process. Academic literacy reading means following arrows and branch conditions without rewriting the process from prior knowledge.

Invented flow-chart in words (assignment extension request):

1. Start → Student submits online form before the deadline.
2. If form incomplete → Return to student (end of path until resubmitted).
3. If complete → Tutor reviews.
4. If tutor approves → New deadline recorded; student notified.
5. If tutor declines → Student may appeal to course convenor within 3 working days.
6. Convenor decision is final.

AL questions often ask: “A student whose form is incomplete should…” → expect return/resubmit, not automatic appeal. Or: “When is the convenor involved?” → only after a decline and a timely appeal — not at the first step.

Basic numerical concepts in prose

AL asks you to understand how numbers work in sentences, including:

Invented perilous sentence. “Support bookings rose by 50% after the campaign, from 80 to 120 a month.” Here the relative rise is 50% ((120−80)/80). If another sentence said “the share of first-years using support rose by 50 percentage points,” that would be a different claim (e.g., from 10% to 60%). AL items punish mixing these up even when no long calculation is required.

Integrating prose + visual: the “both supported” item

Some questions ask which statement is supported by both the graphic and the writer’s commentary. Use a two-tick test:

1. Can I point to a cell/bar/arrow that supports the statement?
2. Does the writer’s sentence agree (not contradict) that reading?

If the table shows Daisy with the slowest response, but the writer mistakenly praises Daisy as fastest, a “both supported” option claiming Daisy is fastest fails the visual tick — unless the question asks only what the writer claims (a different stem). Read the stem’s scope words: according to the table, according to the author, according to both.

Worked AL-style integrations (invented)

Case 1 — Percentage reference tracking

Passage fragment. “Of the 200 Education students surveyed, 30% had never used the writing centre. Among those 60 non-users, half said they ‘did not know it was free.’”

Questions you should be able to answer without QL depth:

• What does 30% refer to? → share of the 200 who never used the centre.
• How many non-users? → 60 (explicitly restated).
• What does “half” of non-users refer to? → 30 students among non-users, not half of all 200.

Trap: applying “half” to the wrong base.

Case 2 — Flow-chart branch

Passage fragment. “Figure 1 shows the ethics clearance path. Projects involving interviews with minors require an extra guardian-consent upload before committee review. Projects using only anonymised secondary datasets skip that upload.”

If an item asks what a student using only anonymised secondary data should do about guardian consent → skip that upload, following the branch — not “always upload to be safe” (outside the chart).

Case 3 — Writer vs graphic tension

Occasionally the skill is noticing what the graphic shows when the stem asks only for the graphic. Keep author opinion separate unless asked. If Figure 2 shows Humanities with 9 library visits and the writer calls Engineering “the most bookish faculty,” an “according to Figure 2” question still points to Humanities.

Units and silent zeros

Watch unit shifts mid-paragraph: “The lab used 2 kg of reagent in February and 500 g in March.” Comparing 2 and 500 without converting units is an AL trap even when arithmetic is simple. Convert to one unit mentally (2000 g vs 500 g) before judging “more/less.”

What AL is not asking here

Keeping this boundary reduces panic: you are still doing academic reading, just with multimodal and numeric cues.

Exam-day checklist (60 seconds before answering)

1. Stem scope: table only, author only, or both?
2. Headers and units checked?
3. Correct row/column intersection?
4. For flow-charts: which condition is true in the stem’s scenario?
5. For prose numbers: what is the base of the percentage or fraction?
6. Does my option invent a cause the graphic never states?

Use that checklist and visual/numerical AL items become systematic rather than intimidating — exactly the tertiary-ready reading habit AQL is designed to probe.