This page is part of my unofficial solutions manual to the GRE Paper Practice Book (2e), a free resource available on the ETS website. They publish the questions; I explain the answers. If you haven’t worked through the Practice Book, give Section 6 a shot before reading this!

6.17: State Populations, Pt. 1

Turn the page, and we’re back to the chart block. This set of problems is a little more straightforward than those in Section 5, mainly because there’s only one data graphic to deal with. For this problem, a simple and effective approach would be to add up the “Number of States” column for each of the first five categories:

There is, however, an alternate route that some students find faster and simpler. The chart tells us (or, depending on where you’re from, reminds us) that there were 50 states in the USA during the year in question. So instead of counting up, we can start with 50 and subtract the three categories excluded by the problem:

Either way, we arrive at 43 states, which corresponds to answer choice (B).

Math Review Reference

For more on this topic, see the following section of the GRE Math Review:

• 4.1: Graphical Methods for Describing Data (pp. 62-64)