Read a table: units and "in thousands"

Example 1

1. Before reading any number, read the edges of the table. The title says what is counted (people living in New York State) and that the numbers are in thousands. The heading of the second column says the same thing again.
2. “In thousands” tells you what one stands for. Here, 1 in a cell means one thousand people, so every number in the column must be multiplied by 1,000.
3. Now find the cell: the 1950 row, the population column. It says 14,865.
4. Multiply by 1,000, which is the same as writing three zeros after it: 14,865 × 1,000 = 14,865,000 people.
5. A million is a thousand thousands (1,000,000). 14,865,000 is a little less than 15 million; rounded to one decimal place, it is about 14.9 million. That is C.
6. A is the cell read without its heading, the most common table mistake: it would mean fewer than fifteen thousand people, a small town, not a state.
7. B and D put the zeros in the wrong place: B is ten times too few, D ten times too many.
8. Check it against sense: New York City alone had nearly 8 million people in 1950, so a state of about 15 million is reasonable.

Answer: C

Example 2

1. Read the edges first. The title says “numbers in thousands.” But look at the headings: the last column is a percent. The thousands apply to the counts (workers and union members), not to the percent.
2. So in 2014 the city had 800 thousand workers (800,000) and 120 thousand union members (120,000). In 2024 it had 960,000 workers and, again, 120,000 union members.
3. Now test each choice against the table, one column at a time.
4. A says the number of members fell. The union members column says 120 both years. The number did not change. A is wrong.
5. B says the number stayed the same while the share fell. The count is 120 both years, and the percent went from 15.0 to 12.5. Both parts match. B is the answer.
6. Why did the share fall if the count did not? Because the whole grew: there were more workers in all (960 thousand against 800 thousand). The same number of members is a smaller share of a bigger whole. A share can fall while a number holds still or even rises.
7. C takes 12.5 from the percent column and treats it as a count in thousands. It is a percent: 12.5 of every 100 workers.
8. D is the opposite of the table: workers rose from 800 thousand to 960 thousand.

Answer: B