CAT 2016: Best books on DI preparation; section a game changer - toppers & experts advise 30 days strategy

CAT 2016 will have a clubbed section of Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning with 30 to 34 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 a month away and the admit card issued by IIM Bangalore, the preparation and practice momentum for the D-day has picked up full throttle. At this juncture CAT toppers and experts suggest 1 month preparation strategy for 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.

DI-real game changer: Experts view
Prof Nishit K Sinha, Prof Arun Sharma 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 79 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

• -- You cannot expect to score high sectional percentile without attempting more questions on Data Interpretation
• -- Neglecting DI part can slide down your sectional percentile score much lower than minimum qualifying 75 or 80 percentile
• -- One set of 4 DI questions can add to your percentile up by 20 to 24 points in equated scoring system
• -- Consistent practice can get you expertise on DI questions. There are limited topics on which DI questions are formed.

CAT Toppers DI preparation strategy
CAT toppers followed varying preparation strategy to crack the DI section and they suggest the same to CAT 2016 aspirants

Amritansh Ahuja, IIM-Kozhikode
Amritansh Ahuja who scored 99.26 percentile in CAT 2015 and is now a student of PGP 2016-18 batch at IIM Kozhikode had prepared a chart for numerical preparation. It had tables for first 25 numbers and squares and cubes of first 25 numbers. Our teachers emphasizedon this. In fact most of the time during mocks I found calculator to be time consuming. Hence I depended on my own calculations.

Accordingly, in view of Amritansh, the best preparation for DI part can be done in next 30 days, if-

• -- You prepare a numerical chart
• -- Instead of depending upon on screen calculator, practice more to do your own calculations

Pranjal Agarwal, IIM-Ahmedabad
IIM Ahmedabad student of PGP 2016-18 and 100 percentiler in CAT 2015 Pranjal emphasizes on more and more practice. According to him 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.

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 its 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.

• -- Now, in next one month, to prepare on DI question sets you should--
• -- 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

Saransh Garg, FMS Delhi
Saransh Garg who scored 99.98 percentile in CAT 2015 and is now a student of MBA 2016-18 at FMS Delhi also agrees 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 could be summed up as

• -- Solve previous years CAT question papers as much as possible
• -- Dont spend more than 7 minutes to solve a DI set of 4 questions

Subham Bhowmick, NITIE Mumbai
Subham who scored 99.46 in CAT 2015 and is now a student of NITIE shares his preparation strategy for DI I mostly depended on course materials and online sectional and mock tests. Apart from that, I also prepared from Arun Sharmas.
The 2 things that CAT 2016 aspirants should follow while preparing for DI in next 1 month, in his view are-

• -- Course and online study material both are important
• -- Best books like that by Arun Sharma on DI should be studied and their examples & practice exercises must be attempted to crack CAT 2016

Best Books: CAT toppers recommend
To overcome the hurdles and ace the Data Interpretation section, there are very good books & study material available in the market. Besides, the study material provided by various online or offline coaching centres imparting training for CAT 2016 is also a good source to prepare for DI in CAT 2016. A few of them are-
How to Prepare for Data Interpretation for CAT - by Arun Sharma (Published by McGraw Hill)
Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for the CAT - by Nishit K Sinha (Published by Pearson)

• -- Online study material and study centres practice exercises (Available from TIME, CL)
• Next 1 Month: Crucial for DI preparation
• In next 30-40 days you can prepare and practice well on Data Interpretation to score high in this section in CAT 2016. The required strategy according to Prof S K Agarwal, expert and mentor on CAT preparation, to be followed is as under-
• -- Please note DI questions need continuous practice. So better to understand the concept and attempt the exercise
• -- Understand the logics behind the problem, solve them in fun. It will keep you motivated and you will be able to solve them faster than before. Your time is most important to manage. So beware of wasting it.
• -- Questions on DI section are always more time consuming and require focused attention to crack.
• -- Most of the DILR questions are in a set of 4-5 questions following a problem set. The questions are expected to be based on tricky information rich problems in the form of bar diagrams, graphs, tables on Data Interpretation.
• -- Remember practicing the right approach to solve the questions could be the key to score high.
• -- In a set of 4-5 questions on DI problem, it is very much possible that 2 may be MCQs and other 2 are Non-MCQs.
• -- If you are not in the habit of jumping to answer options without solving the question, it will be better to answer Non-MCQs as the wrong answers to Non-MCQs will not carry any negating marking while there will be a penalty of one-third mark for MCQs.
• -- The best approach is to prepare and practice well on DI questions, get rid of your weaknesses and solve more questions with no answer options given. You can ace the Non-MCQs very well with this strategy.

If you can hit 8 LR and 8 DI correct, you may expect a very good percentile in this section. There is no dearth of time as well since you have full 60 minutes for 30-34 questions meaning around 2 minutes per question.
With the recent change in weightage to MCQs and non-MCQs and scoring pattern in CAT 2016, it would be better to revise your preparation strategy accordingly to aim for a high score in modified CAT 2016 is the specific advice from Prof S K Agarwal, expert and mentor on CAT 2016 preparation.