Ease Into Prep with a GRE^® Question of the Day

Approach strategically

The graph shows percent of total tax revenues for the two years, so these percentages do not need to be calculated. According to the graph's y-axis, a 1% difference is one-fifth the distance between horizontal lines. Scan the graph to see which pairs of bars are very similar in height. Oil has a slight difference of about 0.5%, and Gift, Inheritance, and Alcohol & Tobacco each appear to have an even smaller difference. Thus, there are four types of taxes for which the difference does not exceed 1%, and (D) is the correct answer.

TAKEAWAY: Getting a clear understanding of what a question is asking can mean the difference between efficiently answering it and spending time calculating values that may not even be relevant.

Analyze the graph

For each of various types of tax, the graph compares the percentage of total tax revenues between two different years. The light gray bars represent percent of total tax revenues in 1963 and the dark gray bars in 1993. The total amount of tax revenue for each year is also given.