Population Growth Tutorial

It is easiest to use this tutorial if you make your browser's window fill the entire screen. It will save you lots of scrolling time.

Question 1

What does this graph tell you?
a) The number of individuals in the population depends on the per capita birth rate.
b) the per capita birth rate gets lower as time goes on.
c) the per capita birth rate of each individual depends on the number of individuals in the population.
d) the population's birth rate is high when the number of individuals in the population is low.




































































































You said that this graph,


tells you (a) that the number of individuals in the population depends on the per capita birth rate.
no -- in any graph, the thing that is plotted on the vertical (y) axis is the "dependent" variable. So this graph tells you that birth rate depends on N, not the other way around.
Click here to return to question 1.



































































































You said that this graph,


tells you that (b) the per capita birth rate gets lower as time goes on.
no -- this graph tells you nothing about time. The horizontal axis is N, or population size, not time. The first step in interpreting a graph is always to figure out what the axes represent.
Click here to return to question 1.



































































































You said that this graph,


tells you that d) the population's birth rate is high when the number of individuals in the population is low.
no -- you've correctly worked out that birth rate is the dependent variable here, but "b" is the number of kids produced by an individual, not the number of births to the whole population.
Click here to return to question 1.