Homicide rate trends by decade

What you’ll practice

Decade-by-decade trend questions help you sharpen your ability to compare periods, spot rises and declines, and recognize major inflection points in homicide rates.

You’ll also practice reading questions carefully for the unit of comparison (decade vs. year-to-year) and separating overall direction from short-term fluctuations.

Format, length, and difficulty

Each question gives you 4 options and there’s no timer, so you can think through trend logic rather than rushing.

Before starting, pick your preferred question count and difficulty; “Mixed” blends easier recognition items with harder comparison and ordering challenges to keep the run engaging.

Common pitfalls to avoid

• Confusing a brief spike with a decade-long trend
• Mixing up which decade comes before/after when ordering changes
• Overweighting a single well-known event instead of the broader pattern
• Missing keywords like “highest,” “largest increase,” or “most sustained decline”
• Assuming trends are linear when the question hints at reversals

How the balance stays fair

Expect a steady ramp: straightforward decade identification appears alongside tougher questions that ask you to compare multiple decades or choose the best summary statement. Mixed difficulty is designed to reward careful reading and pattern recognition without requiring specialist knowledge on every item.