Graph Exercise: Arts students score higher on SAT.

• Position: Brief Article

The national debate over standardized testing comes in the middle of another school debate. In many school districts, the arts are one of the first classes to go when budgets are squeezed. But the latest data give new weight to the value of arts education. Surveys conducted by the College Board reveal that students who study the arts tend to have higher SAT scores than students who have had no arts course work. This graph shows mean verbal and math scores from 2001. Use the data in the graph to answer the questions below.

Sources: The College Board, The National Association for Music Education.

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1. What is the approximate difference between the mean verbal scores of students of dance and those of students of photography/film?

2. Which category of students shows identical verbal and math scores?

3. In which categories of students is the gap between verbal and math scores almost exactly 10 points?

4. Suppose students who have never taken any arts courses could raise their verbal scores by 10 percent. Which point on the vertical axis of the graph...