WorkKeys: Graphic Literacy

What Does Graphic Literacy Test?
This section tests your ability to interpret typical graphics you might encounter in the workplace. Such graphics might include various types of graphs, charts, tables, diagrams, schematics, and measurement instruments, among other things.
Thus, there is a significant variety of graphics that might appear on the test. Although some of the graphics might be more commonly encountered in certain occupations, the questions are intended to test your general ability to analyze and draw conclusions from graphics; you will not need any specialized knowledge to answer the questions.

What Do the Questions Look Like, and How Difficult Are They?
The complexity of both the graphics themselves and the questions varies considerably. Relatively easy questions will simply require you to locate information, while more difficult questions will require you to use the graphics to make conclusions about a hypothetical scenario. Some of the graphics will be relatively simple, or represent an instrument or situation commonly encountered in everyday life (e.g., a thermometer), while other graphics will contain much more detail and have a less intuitive format.

The graphics and test questions are assigned a difficulty level between 3 and 7, depending on the following criteria:
- Level 3: The graphics are in a simple format and contain a low level of detail. The questions are usually straightforward, requiring you to only locate information.
- Level 4: The graphics typically have somewhat more detail, and are in a less intuitive format, than Level 3 graphics. However, the questions themselves are still straightforward, but may require comparisons or inferences.
- Level 5: The graphics are generally highly detailed, and in a format that is either abstract or non-intuitive to many people. The questions often require summarizing information, identifying trends, drawing conclusions, or selecting a graphic to suit a need.
- Level 6: The graphics are highly complex. The questions usually require drawing conclusions about hypothetical scenarios but may require you to choose a graphic that represents the data given.
- Level 7: The graphics are extremely complex. The questions may require advanced interpretation.

What Strategies Can I Use to Do Well on This Section?
- Read the questions before examining the graphic. Reading the questions first can give you a good idea of what to look for in the graphics, and help you complete the questions more efficiently.
- Systematically eliminate obviously wrong answer choices. If you can reduce the number of answer choices by one or two, you can drastically improve your chances of answering the question correctly, even if you randomly guess.
In addition, eliminating wrong answer choices may help you better focus on the remaining ones, removing some of the "clutter" from the problem.
- For difficult questions, look for the best answer rather than the right answer. Most of the easy questions are black and white: they require you to simply locate a particular item of information.

Such questions usually have questions that are clearly right or wrong. However, some of the more difficult questions require you to make generalizations or explanations.

These types of questions don't always have clearly right or wrong answers, but better and worse answers. For these questions, some of the answer choices might seem reasonable, but another answer choice might be better.
Therefore, for more difficult questions, you should focus on finding the best answer, not necessarily the right answer.