Data Interpretation: Strategies

Almost all of us read the newspapers and magazines on a daily basis. While going through them, we often come across some data presented in the form of charts, bars, pie-charts and other diagrams. One of the most relevant examples is movement of the sensex of the BSE or NIFTY chart over a period of time. These are often represented by a line diagram. Now, students with regular practice of DI can easily make out the movement of the sensex depicting from the chart. It will almost always easy for him to tell accurately which day of the week saw maximum gain or loss.

In the same way, inflation index or cricket statistics or the rise in price levels are also depicted in chart or diagram format. It will be fun to draw your own consluions based on charts without even looking at the text written below.

Other method could be mental calculations. Whether you are filling up petrol or counting numbers written on the number plates of vehicles or buying vegetables or analyzing price movement of a particular share, one should use mental mathematics and revise percentages and approximations. Candidates with strong interest in cricket can also use that mental mathematics for calculating run rate, over rate or strike rate.

While preparing for Data Interpretations, candidates should also focus on learning square roots and cube roots of numbers upto 10. Then, knowing reciprocals and percentages of numbers upto 20 is also a must. Similarly, one should also be familiar with squares of numbers upto 30 and the cubes of numbers upto 20.