Data Interpretation for CAT--Introduction & Basic Fundas
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Data interpretation is one most critical section in CAT and other management exams which can become a nightmare for a lot of students. In this section, different caselets with 4-5 questions will be there. The questions and pattern in this section may change year after year, so always make sure that you score the cut-off marks for DI section and be safe.

The questions can be normal puzzles, numbers based puzzles, pattern matching, graph based caselets, game based caselets….

You must be fast in calculations, especially with fractions and percentages, in order to score high marks in DI section. Also in lot of graph based questions, you can answer them by mere observation alone.

If you analyze the DI questions, in recent CATS, a lot of reasoning questions are also appearing in CAT DI.

Some important concepts helpful in CAT-DI

Percentage concepts
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When a number becomes double, we say that it increased by 100%.
Also if it becomes thrice,the number increased by 200%.
ie the percentage increase ,if number got multiplied by ‘n’ times is
(n-1)*100.
If the number increases 14 times,the percentage increase is (14-1)*100=1300%

Similarly,if we say that a number got percentage increase of 1200,we mean that it became,{(1200/100) +1} ie 13 times its original value.

Also finding the squares of numbers, quickly is another important need for scoring high marks in DI section.

Fast way of finding Squares of numbers.
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For finding squares of all numbers,we have a rather easy way.

Eg 1.Find the square of 32.

(32-2)*(32+2)+2*2= 30*34+4=1020+4=1024.

The advantage of this method is that we are converting the squaring procedure to a single digit multiplication plus addition. This is quite easy compared to the usual 2-digit multiplication.
In the example given above,the 32*32 multiplication is changed to a simple single digit multiplication of 34*3. and addition.

Eg. 2. Find the square of 26.

(26-6)*(26+6)+6*6=20*32+36=640+36=676
or this can be done in one more way,
(26+4)(26-4)+4*4=30*22+16=660+16=676.

Both ways are easier than the original multiplication of 26*26.

We can do any square using this method; however we need to improve our speed in single digit multiplication.

Faster way of finding Square-roots of numbers
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Finding approximate roots of numbers can also be useful in DI sections.
We have an easy method for that too.

Eg1. Suppose we need to find the root of 30.

The largest number with its square within 30 is 5(5*5=25).
Now 30/5 is 6.
So square root of 30 is (5+6)/2 = 5.5

If you take the square root of 30,it will come to 5.477. Approximately 5.5.

Eg2. Find the root of 40.

The largest number with its square within 40 is 6(6*6=36).
Now 40/6 is 6.667
So square root of 40 is (6+6.667)/2 = 6.333.
If you take the square root of 40,it will come to 6.324. Approximately 6.333.

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Comments (6)

On December 12, 2012 at 5:16 AM , Unknown said...

I really loved reading the TIPS, They are much needed to hear since i m studying for these from http://www.wiziq.com/course/9180-logical-verbal-reasoning-data-interpretation-and-data-sufficiency its has what one need to learn for solving quantitative aptitude question or data interpretation question including verbal reasoning as well… It has helped me to increase the question solving speed !!!! so can u post questions for the same ?

 
On February 7, 2013 at 4:37 AM , Unknown said...

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For me its really helping, developing a nice base...

 
On February 7, 2013 at 4:43 AM , Unknown said...

Thanks Tarini for providing me with the link it was helpful, i found a course i actually wanted

 
On April 29, 2013 at 7:32 AM , Rizzi said...

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On March 16, 2015 at 9:43 AM , ravisharmas said...

Good info..
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On January 5, 2017 at 2:44 AM , Unknown said...

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