CAT SMART
THE DATA INTERPRETATION AND LOGICAL REASONING
SECTION OF THE CAT IS THE MOST CRUCIAL ONE, AS IT
REQUIRES MINIMUM EFFORT AND HENCE PROVIDES
MAXIMUM SCOPE FOR SCORING IN THE CAT EXAM. ARUN
SHARMA TELLS YOU HOW TO CRACK THIS SECTION
Most students get stuck at the DI section due to inadequate preparation
The DI section can be solved the fastest and involves the least effort
Turnaround times in DI can be as short as 30 days
The DI and LR section can be your shortcut to the IIMs. You would agree with this if you
look at the preparation processes for the three parallel sections that the CAT tests you for
viz, quantitative aptitude, verbal ability and reading comprehension and data interpretation
and logical reasoning. Compare these processes and you will realise that this section
requires the minimum effort as also provides the possibility of minimum turnaround time,
that is, if you are aiming at moving from a range of say 50 percentile to 90 plus percentile in
any of the three sections of CAT, the DI section would be the fastest as well as the one
involving the least effort. Hence, it is advisable not to ignore this section. However,
unfortunately the vast majority of CAT takers are least prepared for this section.
As mentioned in our last article, this occurs mainly due to the lack of a clear idea of how
to prepare for the DI, mainly since there is no portion for DI. The next obvious question then
would be what should you do in order to improve your DI percentiles and solving abilities?
And more importantly what can you do in a 90 day time frame to improve your chances of
scoring well at the DI?
1) Adopt a two pronged approach- skills development and exposure creation:
The first thing you need to realise as you try to create a strategy is that since you cannot
adopt a portion coverage approach, you should create a skills development approach plus an
exposure to problems approach while trying to improve your data interpretation scores.
You need to clearly distinguish between these two:
a) By skills development we mean that there are specific skills that are essentially tested
in DI. As a CAT and management aspirant you first need to identify these skills, and then
create a regimen for the development of the same. For instance, suppose one has a simple
set of DI containing four questions which are based on percentage changes and ratio
calculations and if such a set of questions is given to three lac CAT aspirants to solve under
test conditions, the scores gained by students across the nation would show great variance.
Not only that, even amongst the people who get everything correct, hence the same scores,
there will be huge variance in the time required. You should thus make attempts not to lag
behind your other competitors.
b) By exposure to problems we mean that the objective of your preparation should be to
get to a point where you have prepared yourself so thoroughly that you are confident of
solving any question. So, how many question sets in DI do you need to solve to get to this
point? The answer is around 750-1000 question sets (not questions). One word of caution
though, while doing this you will need to ensure that you solve the correct sets of questions
that will expose you to all kinds of logics. Thus, you should solve questions based on
tournaments, progressions, maximising and minimising constraints as well as those based
on venn diagrams to name a few. With the 90 day time limit you should solve around 11
sets per day.
For those of you who have already begun to think that there is no preparation time left,
take heart. Turnaround times in DI can be as short as 30 days.
In conclusion, just work in a task oriented fashion- set tasks for yourself and complete
them, to hone your abilities.
(The author is a CAT trainer and the author of a series of best-selling books on
CAT and other aptitude exams published
by Tata McGraw Hill)
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