In 2000, beef cows represented 25% of all livestock in the pie chart. For purposes of setting up a ratio, think of this as 25 parts of the whole. Sheep were 4% of the livestock, or 4 parts of the whole. However, sheep use four times as much pasture as beef cows. To weight the sheep’s pasture acreage accordingly, multiply their 4 parts by 4 to get 16 parts. You now have a total of 25 + 16 = 41 parts, of which the beef cows used 25 parts. Put another way, the beef cows used 25/41 of the pasture, or about 61%. In 2000, there were about 550,000 acres of pasture, so beef cows used about 550,000 × 0.61 = 335,500 acres.

Now do the same calculations for 2008. Beef cows were 19% of the livestock (19 parts of the whole), and sheep were 2%. Again, sheep use four times as much pasture, so multiply their 2 parts of the whole by 4 to get 8 parts. There was a total of 19 + 8 = 27 parts, and the beef cows used 19 parts. So the beef cows used 19/27 of the pasture, or about 70%. In 2008, there were about 2,200,000 acres of pasture, so beef cows used about 2,200,000 × 0.7 = 1,540,000 acres. Finally, the question asks for the approximate increase from 2000 to 2008: 1,540,000 – 335,500 = 1,204,500.

B is the answer