You have commissioned a measurement of the second ionization energy from two independent research teams. You find that they do not agree and decide to plot the data together with known values of the first ionization energy. The results are shown here:

The lowest curve is for the first ionization energy, and the upper two curves are the results for the second ionization energy from the two research teams. The uppermost curve has been shifted vertically to avoid an overlap with the other new data set. On the basis of your knowledge of the periodic table, you suddenly know which of the two sets of data is correct and the error that one of the teams of researchers made. Which data set is correct? Explain your reasoning.

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Kr Не Ne Ar Xe 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 10 20 30 40 50 Atomic number lonization energy