How to Prepare for DATA INTERPRETATION for CAT

1560 Pages·2019·49.16 MB·english

by  Arun Sharma

How to Prepare for
DATA
INTERPRETATION
Common Admission Test
& other Management Examinations
How to Prepare for
DATA
INTERPRETATION
Common Admission Test
& other Management Examinations
ARUN SHARMA
Educational Consultant
McGraw Hill Education (India) Private Limited
Published by McGraw Hill Education (India) Private Limited
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Data Interpretation for the CAT, 6e
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To
my wife
Meenakshi,
and my grandparents
(Late) Mr. R. N. Sharma
and
(Late) Mrs. Girish Kumari Singh
Preface to the Sixth Edition
T
he importance of Data Interpretation to clear CAT and other MBA
examinations can never be undermined. Right through the last decade
of CAT, in spite of several changes to the exam pattern as the test
evolved from its paper pen format to the online format, the importance of DI
has, if anything, increased rather than decreased.
The current pattern of CAT has Data Interpretation and Logical
Reasoning as one of its three sections containing a total of 32 questions out of
the total 100 questions in the exam. These 32 questions are typically divided
between DI (16 questions divided into 4 sets of 4 questions each) and Logical
Reasoning (16 questions divided into 4 sets of) questions. While this has been
the pattern of the DI-LR section of the CAT, the latest papers – especially the
ones after 2017 have started to become increasingly more difficult. Thus,
while the earlier CAT papers required you to solve 20–22 questions (all
correct) to score a 98+ percentile in this section, the latest papers (2017
onwards) you would need to solve only 14-16 questions in order to achieve
the same percentile. This is just an indication of the increased level of
difficulty of the sets in the Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning section
of the CAT – and naturally would and should drastically change the process
you adopt for preparation of this all important section of the exam.
In the current difficulty level of this exam, you require to do just 4 sets
out of 8 in order to get in the 95–98 percentile. If you are able to attempt 5+
sets and 20–22 questions (all correct) out of 34, you would get a very high
99+ percentile (even going as high as 99.7+ percentile at 22 attempts). In
fact, if you can go all the way to 6 to 6 and a half sets with 24–25 attempts
with a maximum of 1 error, you would get a 100 percentile.
In this context, you would undermine the importance of DI prep at your
own peril – and my advise to you is not fall into the trap that most aspirants
fall into – viz: Not giving enough importance to Data Interpretation during
your preparation journey.
There is another huge risk of not working on DI thoroughly and adopting
the strategy that you would clear this section based only on your Logical
Reasoning solving:
The evidence of the latest CAT papers shows us that out of the 8 sets
being asked in the DI–LR section, 4 sets would be extremely tough (Level of
Difficulty 3), 2–3 sets would be of a tough level (level of Difficulty 2) while
only 1 to 2 sets would be normal difficulty levels. Imagine a test, in which
these two normal sets fall under Data Interpretation and you have not really
prepared your DI- as you adopted the strategy of doing more LR. What you
would lose out on in such a scenario would be the opportunity to score the
easy marks in the section by doing the DI and would be forced to go to the
tougher LR questions, in order to get your attempts in the section. Naturally,
you would be losing out hugely to your competitors, in such a scenario.
Hence, my advise again would be to make sure that you treat both these
subjects DI and LR with intensity and do everything in your power to
maximise your skill levels for them.
This then leads us to the question about how should you prepare your
Data Interpretation, keeping in mind the increasing difficulty level of the
exam? Let me try to answer that for you.
Unlike theory-oriented subjects, where you can feasibly define a portion
and start studying the theory to understand the subject, Data Interpretation as
a subject is an ‘experientially learnt subject’—a subject learnt through
experience. Your approach while studying DI should always be to identify
Data situations and the typical specific solving skills that a particular DI
question requires. Once identified, the DI situation and the specific thought
process involved in that situation should then become part of your ‘must have
skills’.
Data Interpretation traditionally has been a section that has been
dominated by your ability to understand graphs, charts, tables and caselets
presenting information about various variables in the form of numerical
values of certain variables. Variables would be either given or derived from
the variables that were given (for instance, if you were given Revenues and
Costs for a company over 5 years, then you could derive the profit or loss for
the company over the five years as a derived variable). Traditionally, the
questions would ask you questions about the variables (either given or
derived variables) and would essentially involve a little logic and mostly
calculations and observations. However, if you were to look at the DI sets
asked in the CAT over the past 3–4 years you would realise that the
traditional kinds of Data Interpretation questions have mostly disappeared.
These have been replaced by question sets that have been heavy on logic,
analysis and reasoning – with calculations and the skills required to solve the
traditional Data Interpretation questions almost not being tested. These
questions require a completely different approach and completely different
skills from what has been traditionally tested in DI. In my training sessions
with my students, I have realised that the resources required and the approach
required to prepare for the section has to change. The old approaches to DI
preparation would leave you completely unprepared under the changed
scenario – since Traditional DI and Logical DI are almost like two different
subjects.
Naturally, given this change, I have observed that aspirants and students
across the country have been finding it difficult to find appropriate resources
for this section. Over the years, the first five editions of this book have been
used by lacs of aspirants to successfully prepare for CAT and MBA and even
for aptitude exams like Banking etc. However, given the changes that I have
described above, I realised that the pedagogy and the structure of this book
have to undergo a major change.
It is in this context, that I have divided the book – into three major
sections:
Section I: Traditional Data Interpretation
Section II: Logical Data Interpretation
Section III: Data Interpretation from the Archives (XAT, IIFT, CAT)
As you can see, this is perhaps the first book that gives you the opportunity to
prepare separately for traditional DI and for Logical DI. So let us have a look
at the structure of this book and how and why this book is the one valuable
resource you must have with you during your CAT and other exam
prepration journey.
While doing this, I have retained the original strength this book had. This
book has always been structured and written in such a way that you get an
experience of all the possible situations, interpretation and calculation tasks
that DI questions throw up. The endeavour in the book is to make sure that
when you are solving the DI questions in any test, you have already
‘experienced and done’ what the question asks you to do—be it for CAT,
XAT, IIFT, CMAT, Bank PO or any other exam having a DI component. In
other words you are prepared for any eventuality that a DI question might
throw up for you.
Section I: Traditional Data Interpretation:
This section provides you with a comprehensive view and the study resources
and the questions required in order to prepare for the traditional data
interpretation questions. While CAT has been moving away from traditional
DI, other exams like XAT, NMAT, SNAP, MAT, CMAT as well as Banking
and other competitive exams still are rooted in traditional DI. Hence, this
section retains its’ importance for your DI prepration journey.
So how does this section help you master your Traditional Data
Interpretation?
1. After a description and some basic starting exercises of the basic
modes of data representation, the Section moves into Part 2:
Developing your Calculations – where we take a look at the various
kinds of calculations that dominate traditional DI.
2. This is followed by Part 3: ‘How to think In Traditional Data
Interpretation’ an invaluable DI study resource. This part provides you
with two distinct resources → Under Chapter 1: Intro to Traditional DI
and Mathematical Constructs in Traditional DI, help you go through
the necessary mathematical understanding required for Traditional DI.
Chapter 2 is a hands on, one-on-one training section, where the reader
is taken through the step-by-step thinking and solving process that is
gone through in a DI set. Original CAT and XAT questions that can be
classified under Traditional DI, and provide us with huge learning
opportunity have been handpicked and discussed from the thought
process point of view in this section. I would expect the reader to
make the most out of this resource in order to completely understand
what it takes to solve a DI question set, before he/she heads forward
towards the next parts that are focused on practice.
3. Parts 4 and 5, start you off on your practice journey of Traditional DI,
first through Part 4 (DI Exercises without Options) followed by Part 5:
Ten Minute Test Papers, where you get to test and work on your speed
in Traditional DI.
4. You would finally move to the most important part of the practice in