Reading and interpreting line graphs showing change over time, reading values between plotted points.
Where your child meets this in real life: Understanding temperature changes, tracking progress over time, or financial trends
Each SEAG paper has 28 maths questions. Questions 29 to 50 are multiple choice with five possible answers, and questions 51 to 56 need a short written answer. With 56 questions in 60 minutes across English and maths, that is about a minute per question.
SEAGReady breaks read line graphs into 3 steps, taught in order so each skill builds on the last.
Read the value at plotted points on a line graph by finding coordinates
Estimate or read values at positions between plotted data points (interpolation)
Describe and compare rates of change, identifying where change is fastest or slowest
Try three free questions from our read line graphs course. They start easy and get harder, so you can see where your child's confidence runs out. If they manage the last one without a hint, this topic is probably secure. If not, the steps above show where to start.
Anna recorded the temperature every hour from 9am to 12pm. What was the temperature at 10am?
Josh tracked arrivals at a visitor centre. Approximately how many visitors had arrived by 11:30am?
Josh tracked the temperature in a greenhouse from 6am to 6pm. What was the temperature at 6pm?
This is the exact interactive worked example your child sees in SEAGReady. Step through it and watch the method build up.
Holly recorded the temperature in her garden every hour during the school day. She made a line graph of her results.
What was the temperature at 11am?
Find 11am on the horizontal axis
Step 1 of 4
Holly recorded the temperature in her garden every hour during the school day. She made a line graph of her results.
What was the temperature at 11am?
The temperature at 11am was 14°C.
The key insight: Reading a line graph is like finding coordinates - go along, then up!
Common mix-up: Reading 11 instead of 14 by mixing up the axes. The horizontal axis shows TIME, the vertical axis shows TEMPERATURE. Read the value from the vertical axis.
These are the misconceptions we see most often in read line graphs, including the ones our practice questions are specifically designed to catch.
Struggling with read line graphs? The real gap is often in one of these earlier topics.
Sitting the SEAG test this November? Read our last-month revision plan, Paper 1 vs Paper 2 and test day guide.
SEAGReady finds the exact step where your child gets stuck, teaches it with worked examples like the one above, and brings it back for review so it sticks.
Free to start · no card needed