Data Interpretation in DILR section of CAT 2016 may prove to be a real game changer in determining your percentile score. The 16 tricky DI questions in 4 sets comprising MCQ and Non-MCQ format can push your percentile up or may pull it down in CAT 2016.
CAT toppers of last year with 99 or 100 percentile scores and pursuing their MBA/PGP 2016-18 at FMS Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad or IIM Bangalore share that they were also weak at Data Interpretation but made all out efforts to overcome their weakness in DI section and score percentile score as high as 99 to 100 in CAT 2015. How did they do it and what is their advice for CAT 2016 aspirants to crack this tricky section with 99 plus percentile is shared below.
CAT 2016 will have a clubbed section of Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning with 32 questions divided equally into DI & LR question sets. The composition of Data Interpretation questions would be a major part in the form of MCQs and 4-5 questions as Non-MCQs.
DI part would command 50% share in the newly created DILR section and around 16% weightage in overall test paper of CAT 2016 going to be held on December 4, 2016.
Now, with the CAT 2016 exam day barely 20 days away and the exam pattern already shared by IIM Bangalore, the preparation and practice momentum for the D-day has gone full throttle. At this juncture, the CAT toppers suggest the tricks and tips to crack DI part and advise the CAT 2016 aspirants to follow it meticulously as DI can prove to be the game changer in securing success in the exam with high percentile.
How to crack DI with 99 plus? CAT toppers’ advice
CAT toppers followed varying preparation strategy to crack the DI section and they suggest the key tips to CAT 2016 aspirants
Spend 7 minutes per set: Saransh Garg, FMS Delhi
FMS Delhi student Saransh Garg who scored 100 percentile in DILR section and 99.98 percentile overall in CAT 2015 suggests that practice is the key to crack DI section in CAT with high score. Sharing his preparation strategy for DILR section, he says “For DILR, I solved face-to-face CAT for previous years’ questions. There are 8 sets of DILR and you get 60 minutes to solve them. So while taking mocks, I focussed on not spending more than 7-8 minutes on a single set.”
The time line and practice strategy on DI sets, advised by Saransh is –
- Solve previous years’ CAT question papers as much as possible
- Don’t spend more than 7 minutes to solve a DI set of 4 questions
Understand the question first: Pranjal Agarwal, IIM-Ahmedabad
100 percentiler in DILR with scaled score of 96 and IIM Ahmedabad student of PGP 2016-18 with overall 100 percentile in CAT 2015, Pranjal emphasizes on more and more practice.
Sharing the success mantra to score high in DI area of CAT 2016, Pranjal advises “For Data Interpretation, it is important to practice very much. Data interpretation generally has several types of questions available, and many forms of data that could be given to you, including line charts, pie charts, histograms, tables, etc. Be sure that you first are able to understand exactly what the question is asking you and then try to eliminate as many calculations as you can.”
Learn from Example
Sharing an example on how to arrive at the answer, he narrates “For example, if a question is asking about the growth of sales from 10 years ago to now and the options are something like 56%, 112%, 180%, 204%, then it’s not necessary to get the exact percentage answer, you can estimate to find out whether the sales were 1.5 times, a little more than double, little less than triple or a little more than triple of their previous value. If you can do this effectively, you can save a lot of time that otherwise would be spent in calculations, even if you have a calculator.”
The key tips shared by him to crack DI with high score in CAT 2016 are-
- Practice on variety of question sets like line charts, pie charts, histograms, tables among others
- Read correctly the direction before going to attempt the question
- Avoid getting indulged into the web of long calculations and try to arrive at the closest approximate value
- Practice and master the art of elimination
Reduce volatility: Nishant Gupta IIM Bangalore
A non-engineer and B.A. in Economics, Nishant Gupta, student of PGP 2016-18 at IIM Bangalore found DI as one of the weak areas while preparing for CAT 2015 for the first time. With his consistent efforts he cracked DI in CAT with 99.6 percentile and scored 99.97 overall.
Sharing his key advice for CAT 2016 aspirants how to crack DILR with high percentile, Nishant suggests “This was a very volatile section for me in mocks, so I practiced a lot to reduce the volatility. This was the differentiating section in CAT, so it was important to give due importance to this section. TIME advanced questions had a good mix of different question types. In addition, I tried to solve almost all practice tests for DILR to increase speed, identify the sets which should be attempted first, and understand different ways to solve.”
Get into Grove: Ananth IIM Bangalore
Ananth Radhakrishnan who scored 99.85 in CAT 2015 although did not find the exam very difficult but worked throughout to prepare smartly especially for Quant & DI sections which he found himself a little weak in.
Sharing how he prepared to score high in DILR, he says “When it came to LR/DI what I realised was that it was just a matter of getting into the groove of things with practice over time and that was my main strategy for it.
His key advice for CAT 2016 aspirants to crack DI with high score is “Like all things, the only way forward is to really put in some good old hard work. Analysing mock results to understand the topics I’m finding hard to manage, and when that step was climbed, finding the topics that were causing me to take too much time really helped. Another important thing is to make sure not to spend too much time on any one question, and to develop your own personal heuristic to judge that while attempting a question.”
Get answer in minimum time: Shashank Heda IIM Bangalore
Shashank Heda, CAT topper with 99.9 percentile and IIM Bangalore student advises the CAT 2016 aspirants to “Look for the problems that were of ‘Easy’ nature and took more to solve time than usual. Learn the approach to solve them. This is because arriving at the answer in minimum possible time is more important than just finding the answer.”
Prof Arun Sharma, Prof Nishit K Sinha and Prof S K Agarwal, all experts on CAT 2016 preparation and authors of the best-selling books on DI, VARC, LR & Quant preparation are unanimous that in the changed CAT exam structure, you cannot supplement your score of Quant to DI score and now it is difficult to neglect or overlook Data Interpretation questions, if you wish to be shortlisted by highly ranked IIMs.
If you have to score 85 percentile in Quant and VRC sections, you will have to score 85 percentile minimum in CAT 2016 in DI section also to get shortlisted by IIMs. The actual cut off percentile in DILR section in CAT 2016 may be higher than the announced cut off, depending upon the merit status and scoring pattern. If you score a percentile of 97 in Quant; 96 in VRC but lag behind to 69 in DILR, despite scoring a high percentile of 97 or 98 in CAT 2016, you will not get shortlisted by IIMs as they need a minimum of 80 to 85 percentile in each of the 3 sections
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