MBAUniverse.com Aspirant Zone is publishing a series of articles by CAT experts from leading test prep companies like IMS Learning, TIME, Career Launcher and others.
In this three-part series, expert from Mumbai based IMS Learning offers advice on how to prepare key sections: Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning, Quantative and Test taking skills. We kick off this series with first article titled ' Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning' by Mr Gejo Srinivasan of IMS Learning.
Next article in this series will focus on Quantitative Section.
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
By IMS Learning
The Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning section of the CAT is probably closest in resemblance to the kind of problems you will be dealing with as a manager. It tests your decision-making ability and speed. This section has seen the maximum amount of change in the past few years as well. Five years ago, this section was primarily calculation based and the focus on the Logical Reasoning portion was lesser. But in the past couple of years the focus has clearly shifted in favor of LR questions. Due to this the selection of the correct sets has become of prime importance. The questions in DI and LR section can be broadly classified in three broad based categories:
a) Data Interpretation
b) Logical Reasoning
c) Data Sufficiency
Let us look at these in a little more detail.
Data Interpretation:
In this calculation intensive portion you will encounter a large number of graphs and tables from which you will need to reap relevant data. To be successful in this portion you will need to key out the data which is important for the questions asked. It is quite common that question setters baffle students with humongous amounts of data, most of it being unneeded. Also, do not forget the fact that all questions in a particular set are not of equal difficulty level. So you should be flexible enough to leave a difficult question and not get stuck.
The most common mistake made by students in this portion is grabbing the wrong data. To avert this potential disaster, I would like to recommend that you should point your pencil to the data you want and mark the values clearly required on the bar graph, line graph or the pie chart. Most of these questions check your approximation abilities as well. While estimating your answers, there are a few things that you should keep in mind.
1) You approximations need to be as precise as the options to the question mentioned. For example if the five options in a question are:
a) 5.67 b) 7.28 c) 9.29 d) 13.69 e) 20.22
You have the liberty of making very bad approximations because although the options look close to each other, they are actually very far from each other. If the correct answer is 9.29, to get 5.67 you will need to make an error of around 40 %. That is a whopping error margin that you have. However, if your options were:
a) 115.67 b) 117.28 c) 119.29 d) 123.69 e) 130.22
You will not have the same luxury anymore because your error margin has dropped significantly. Needless to say, you will have to be much more careful while approximating in the second case.
2) While rounding off fractions, either round off both the numerator and the denominator on the higher side or round off both of them on the lower side. This will help you nullify the error a little bit. Also if you approximating the product of two numbers round off one of them to the higher side and the other one to the lower side for the same reason.
3) Do note if the data given is in unit terms or percentage share.
Logical Reasoning
The Ancient Greek aphorism "Know thyself" is very apt for solving Logical Reasoning questions. To do that you need to extensively analyze your SIM CAT papers. It would tell you which kind of Logical Reasoning questions you are comfortable with and also the type where you are making a large number of mistakes. It is important to know your strengths so that you can capitalize on them and to know your weaknesses so that, if possible you can rectify them or at least know which questions to avoid.
The first step to solving a Logical Reasoning question is to write down all the information given in a format which is easily readable. If necessary draw a Venn diagram for different type of products or people. If the question is talking about a linear or round table seating arrangement, always draw the seats first and then place people on various positions as per the restrictions. If the question is talking about a tournament of some sport, draw the points table and then proceed. Putting the data in a tabular form helps your think with an uncluttered mind. Logical Reasoning problems have several statements and that is the reason why you need a methodology to approach logic questions because if you try to look at all the information at once, it will be a problem.
The questions in a Logical Reasoning set are closely linked with each other which means that if you get the logic behind the set, you will be able to solve most of the questions otherwise solving even one of them is going to be a tough task. I have often come across students who spent ten to fifteen minutes on a particular set and were not able to attempt even a single question and even if they did, most of their answers were incorrect. So is the answer to this problem: "Do not attempt LR"? I don't think so. The mistake that these students make is they are not able to leave a question and by the time they realize that a particular set is not for them, they have already wasted crucial time. You should follow a three step approach for solving Logical Reasoning questions:
a) Read b) Understand c)Solve
If it takes you more than 3-5 minutes to Read and Understand a particular set then it is a good idea to move on to the next set because if you are not able to interpret the question in 5 minutes then the probability of you having the same fate as the students mentioned above becomes quite high.
A common type of question in Logical Reasoning is on Letter Encoding.
Q. If BARK = 41324121 and BAD = 4116 then BAFFLED will be coded as what?
Solution Consider the English Alphabet and look at the positions of various letters. B is 2, A is 1, R is 18 and K is 11. So BARK stands for 211811. Similarly BAD stands for 214.
2 1 18 11 is becoming 4 1 324 121.
2 1 4 is becoming 4 1 16.
If you look at it carefully you would notice that every number is getting squared. Hence
BAFFLED which stands for 2 1 6 6 12 5 4 will be encoded as 4136361442516.
Logical Reasoning requires the maximum amount of effort in the DI / LR section of the CAT examination. You should look beyond your CAT Coaching material and SIM CATs and try out puzzles. It would be a good idea to start solving Sudoku regularly as it will give you an edge with numbers as well as logic based questions.
Data Sufficiency
While attempting data sufficiency questions you should first memorize the four or five answer choices and then start doing the questions. It is quite common to make a high number of errors while answering these questions as one of the answer choices is invariably: "The question cannot be answered." Few things that you should keep in mind while answering these questions are:
· Do not carry over any information from one statement to the other one.
· Take positive as well as negative values while solving inequalities with variable 'x'.
· When you consider bodies in motion, always remember that motion can happen in various directions. Say for instance, two bodies A and B are moving in opposite directions, they can be moving towards each other as well as away from each other.
· The question is considered answerable if and only if you get a unique answer to a problem. For example if you find out the answer to a particular question as x = 1 or -1, the question is still unanswerable because you have not got a unique answer.
Let us take an example
Question. What is the area of a triangle if one of its sides is 5 cm and the other sides have lengths that are integers?
Statement A The sides of the triangle form a pythagorian triplet.
Statement B The other two sides are 3 cm and 4 cm.
Solution:
From statement A we can have two pythagorian triplets (3,4,5) and (5,12,13). The area of the triangle in the two sets will be 6 and 30 units respectively. I agree that we can find out the answer but we are getting two different answers. In Data Sufficiency it is important that we get a unique answer. So we cannot answer the question from Statement A.
From statement B we can directly say that the area of the triangle is 6 units. So we can answer the question from Statement B. Hence depending upon the instructions, we can mark the choice which says, the question can be answered using only Statement B.
In the end we would like to add, what we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible is rarely a function of our true capabilities. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are. So believe in yourself.
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