Data Interpretation (DI) Section

Data Interpretation (DI) section accounts for a third of the questions that appear in CAT

Data Interpretation (DI) - what does it comprise?

Data Interpretation accounted for 50 marks questions in the Common Admissions Tests (CAT) since CAT 2001. CAT 2005 had 30 questions in this section. 10 of the 30 questions were 1 mark questions and the remaining 20 were 2 marks questions. CAT 2006 and CAT 2007, each had 25 questions in this section. Each qeustion carried 4 marks

Data Intrepretation section can be broadly classified as comprising two types of questions.

• Data Interpretation (DI)

  In these questions data is presented either in the form of a table or a bar chart or a pie chart or a line graph or as a combination of one of these formats. Following each of these data presentations, there will be 4 to 6 questions. You are expected to answer the questions by interpreting the data given in the table or graph. Here is a sample data interpretation question.
  

• Data Sufficiency (DS)

  Every Data Sufficiency problem consists of a question followed by two statements. You have to decide NOT WHAT THE ANSWER IS, BUT WHETHER THE QUESTION CAN BE ANSWERED based on the information given in the two statements.
  
  CAT exams till 2004 had DS questions either as part of the quant section or as part of the DI section. CAT 2005 and CAT 2006 did not have any DS questions at all. But it staged a comeback in CAT 2007. Hence, one cannot rule out such questions in future CAT exams.