Preparation Strategy for DI

Preparation Strategy for DI

Preparation Strategy for DI

Last Updated on Nov 6, 2020

Data Interpretation questions form an integral part of most of the competitive papers. In certain papers, it may be a separate section and for some others it could be a part of Quant or Reasoning Section. To master this area, you need to combine skills with strategy. You would need to master skills such as enhanced calculation speeds and employing logical tricks to simplify the question.

This section tests your ability to interpret and comprehend graphical data and then answer the questions it follows. What is essential is that you need to have an idea of all the types of questions that are asked, so that you can attempt them in the correct manner.

Let us start Data Interpretation strategy with a list of topics that you need to prepare for Data Interpretation.

  1. Caselets 1: Application of Mixture-Allegation
  2. Caselets 2: Completion of one task before another.
  3. Caselets 3: Logic Based Data Interpretation
  4. Bar charts
  5. Line charts
  6. Bubble charts
  7. Games & Tournaments
  8. Pie-Charts
  9. Pyramid Charts
  10. Tables
  11. Networks

Before going to the strategy part of DI, we need to master few topics that will help us in almost every topic.

  1. Ratios and fractions: ratios are used in caselets, bar charts, line charts, pie charts and almost every topic. The most common use of ratio is comparison. One should know the relation just by looking at numerators and denominators of two different fractions.
  2. Percentage increase/decrease: percentage increase/decrease can be confusing at times. You need to have clear idea and understanding of percentages.
  3. Mixture-Allegations: you may find an entire set based on the concepts.
  4. Profit-Loss
  5. Decimal conversion

Tips to master DI:

  • To master DI Section must be thorough with Table (at least up to 20) , Squares, cubes, Square roots, percentage to fraction conversion & vice versa
  • Tables, Bar graphs, league matches, line graphs, percentage change, case lets and data sufficiency are a few topics on which the questions are asked in the paper
  • Most of the graphs are picked from any newspaper, journal or any other written source. These graph present or analyze real life scenarios. Try to relate given data to real life scenario to understand. Ask yourself why this data was collected?. Understand data thoroughly & logically clear basic terminology given in graph before jumping to questions
  • Further more certain types of data graphs are quite common: round robin matches in a particular sport, sales figures for a particular company, no of consumers among various competitors, investment and returns of a particular company  & more
  • Understand the nature of data given whether Absolute or relative. Absolute data is lot easier to handle ( figures are in meters, Kg, seconds…). Comparative data can ne slightly tricky to handle ( figures are in percentage, parts per million, per thousand, ratios..etc)
  • Another important aspect is that you need to be aware of the options given. In certain questions, the exact to the point answer is not necessary. The options are spaced in such a manner that approximations can be done. Thus looking at the options before answering the questions saves plenty of your time. In addition to this, in general also, the use of options is a must while answering data questions

Conclusion

Last month is always dedicated to revision and practice. Try to take as many full-length mocks as possible along with revision of topics. A large number of mock test analysis will give you a fair idea about the difficulty level of the section in actual exam. Data Interpretation is one area where you need speed more than anything else. Practice to improve speed with accuracy.

For post related to Quick Mental Calculation, click here.Hope this post helped you do share your comments below in the given box.

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