5.3 Visual and Numerical Information in Text
Key Takeaways
- AL can ask you to read tables, flow-charts, and graphs that sit inside a passage, plus basic numerical wording such as minority, threefold, or n = 18.
- This is still a reading task on Academic Literacy, not Quantitative Literacy's calculation-heavy items and not the MAT paper.
- A sentence that says as shown in Table 1 incorporates the table; skipping the visual is like skipping a sentence.
- Flow-charts encode sequence and decisions; AL asks what must happen before a branch, not for the area of a box.
- Tiny comparisons (48 to 24 is half) can be part of basic numerical concepts in text; a chain of formula work usually means you have left the AL job.
5.3 Visual and Numerical Information in Text
Quick Answer: Academic Literacy can ask you to read a table, flow-chart, or graph that sits inside a passage, and to interpret basic numerical wording (a minority, threefold, n = 18). This is still a reading task. It is not the Quantitative Literacy (QL) component's calculation-heavy work, and it is not the MAT paper.
NBTP's public AL list includes understanding and interpreting information presented visually (for example in tables and flow-charts) and understanding basic numerical concepts and information used in text. Those bullets live under Academic Literacy, beside comprehension and argument, not under QL's multi-step quantitative procedures. Teacher-facing notes similarly mention visually encoded information (graphs, diagrams, flow-charts) and numerical information in academic reading. Independent OpenExamPrep material here trains the AL version of the skill: what does this visual contribute to the paragraph, and what do the numbers in the sentences actually say?
AL visuals versus QL items — say this out loud before you calculate
| Academic Literacy (this section) | Quantitative Literacy (other AQL items) | MAT | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical stem | According to Figure 2 and paragraph 3... | Multi-step use of rates, ratios, units in a real context | Algebra, functions, and other NSC mathematics on unfamiliar problems |
| What success looks like | You can state the claim the visual supports or qualifies | You can choose the correct computed value or comparison | You can apply school mathematics without a formula sheet |
| Calculator | Not allowed in NBT sittings | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Common trap | Treating the figure as clip-art, or launching a long calculation the stem does not ask for | Misreading the chart and mishandling the arithmetic | Forcing a graph into a literacy paraphrase |
If an AL item asks what the writer is using Table 1 to do, the answer is a discourse function: illustrate a decline, contradict a rumour, define a category, show a process. If you find yourself solving for x, you have probably crossed into QL or MAT habits. You may still need a tiny comparison (48 to 24 is half), because "basic numerical concepts used in text" includes simple relations such as half, majority, and threefold. You should not need a chain of formula work.
Tables that are part of the paragraph
Academic tables are not magazine infographics. A sentence such as "Tutorial attendance is summarised in Table 1" incorporates the table into the argument. Skipping the table is like skipping a sentence.
Illustrative Table 1 — first-year tutorial headcount in a class of 48 (invented for teaching, not from an official paper):
| Week | Students present | Author's comment in the prose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 48 | Full attendance in orientation week |
| 3 | 41 | A modest drop after timetable clashes appeared |
| 6 | 24 | By the mid-semester test, half the class was absent |
| 9 | 19 | The late recovery the coordinator predicted did not arrive |
AL-style readings you should be able to justify:
- Half in the week-6 comment is licensed by 24 out of 48, not by a feeling.
- Modest drop for week 3 is the writer's evaluation of 48 to 41; an option that says attendance collapsed by week 3 overreads the numbers and contradicts modest.
- Week 9 falsifies a prediction mentioned in the prose. The visual and the sentence work together: the table supplies the count; the sentence supplies the failed expectation.
Exam trap: an option that is numerically true but not what the question asked (for example computing the mean of 48, 41, 24, and 19 when the stem asked what the writer claimed about week 6). Another trap: an option that moralises (students are lazy) when the passage only reports headcount.
Flow-charts: sequence and decision, not geometry
A flow-chart in an education or health-science article usually encodes order and branches. The mermaid diagram in this section is an original placement-route sketch for teaching, not an official NBT figure.
What AL asks of such a chart:
- What must happen before a student can enter the extended stream? (A test score, not a family interview the figure never shows.)
- Is the extended stream a dead end or a route with a later join? (The last arrow answers that.)
- Does the surrounding paragraph agree with the chart, or is the writer criticising the charted process?
The boxes are not MAT area questions. You are not being asked for the perimeter of the diamond. You are being asked whether you can parse a process the way you parse a paragraph of first... then... otherwise...
Graphs embedded in prose
A bar graph of the same tutorial counts is another encoding of Table 1. AL items may ask which statement the graph supports, or which statement the graph cannot support (no data on reasons for absence; no data on marks). Read the title, axes, units, and time window before you read the pretty bars. A title that says headcount does not license a claim about engagement or learning.
Basic numerical vocabulary in the surrounding sentences often does the real work:
| Phrase in the passage | What it licenses | What it does not license |
|---|---|---|
| a minority of the 120 interns (n = 18) | 18 is less than half of 120; the writer quantified minority | That 18 percent is a national rate |
| threefold increase | the later value is about three times the earlier one | The cause of the increase |
| one in four tutorials | a rate of 25 percent of tutorials, if the base is tutorials | One in four students, if the base was tutorials |
| almost all | a hedge; not 100 percent | A precise percentage you are invited to invent |
| n = 18 | the count used in that sentence | A demand to run a t-test |
"Only a minority of the 120 interns (n = 18) completed the night-shift log" is an AL numerical sentence: minority is made checkable. Eighteen out of 120 is 15 percent, which is indeed a minority. The literacy job is to see that the writer is tightening a vague word with a count, often so a later visual can be compared with the prose. The QL job, on a different item, might ask you to compute 18/120 and compare it with another rate. Do not drag that extra work into an AL stem that only asks what minority refers to.
Other wording that AL treats as readable quantity, not as a MAT prompt:
- Majority / more than half — more than 50 percent of the stated base.
- Double / twice as many — later count is two times the earlier count, if both counts share a base.
- Negligible — the writer judges the amount too small to matter; that is attitude plus quantity, and the table may or may not agree.
- Per capita / per student — the base is a person, not a tutorial slot.
If the base is missing, do not invent it. An option that changes the base (tutorials to students, interns to the national workforce) is usually the distractor.
Integrating sentence plus visual (the usual AL demand)
University texts constantly say as shown below, see Figure 1, the pathway in Diagram 3. Your routine:
- Read the sentence that points to the visual. It usually states the claim.
- Read the visual's title and key. Confirm or qualify the claim.
- Return to the next sentence, which may interpret, hedge, or attack the visual.
- Choose the option that respects all three. If the table shows a drop and the writer says unexpectedly, the attitude is surprise, not celebration.
Original mini-passage:
Figure 2 plots generator hours against completed titration scripts in one teaching laboratory. The relationship is ugly and almost linear: as outage hours rise, completed scripts fall. The dean's newsletter, by contrast, still calls the practical uninterrupted.
An AL item might ask what Figure 2 is doing in the writer's argument. Answer shape: it is evidence against the newsletter's adjective uninterrupted. That is genre-plus-visual reading, still inside AL.
Independent OpenExamPrep items below stay on this reading track. They do not try to impersonate a QL paper. For official AQL layout, use the exemplars on nbt.ac.za.
A passage says "Tutorial attendance is summarised in Table 1" and the table shows Week 1 = 48 and Week 6 = 24 for a class of 48. The Academic Literacy reading is:
A flow-chart in an education article shows: Application, then Placement test, then Regular stream or Extended stream. The chart's academic function is:
The sentence "Only a minority of the 120 interns (n = 18) completed the night-shift log" uses numbers to do what in Academic Literacy terms?