Now, catalysts speed up reactions by lowering the activation energy needed to convert the reactants to products. Now, this in turn increases the number of molecules that have enough kinetic energy to climb that activation barrier. In other words, it decreases this activation energy EA, thereby increasing this e component. And this in turn increases our rate constant, which is directly proportional to rate of reaction. And that's how the rates of reactions are increased by catabalists. Now, let's look at this graph.