Importance of Data Interpretation for SBI PO:
Data Interpretation is an important topic in SBI PO. In the case of SBI PO Mains, an entire section (and 30%) weightage is dedicated to this topic. Although it is not required for the prelims exam, preparing for this topic will help students improve their scores in the all important Mains exam (as well as in other banking exams like IBPS PO and IBPS Clerk). Cracku is offering FREE Daily tests for SBI PO exam to help students prepare.
The data interpretation questions are asked to check how fast a student can interpret, analyze and calculate data given in graphs. These skills are extremely important in banking jobs as candidates are required to deal with thousands of transactions on a daily basis and understand the relative risks/benefits of each.
Types of Questions Asked and Expected Pattern:
The data interpretation questions can be presented to the student in many different ways. The most common types are bar charts, pie charts, tables and line diagrams.
-
Bar Charts: In this types of questions, the data is represented as rectangular blocks. The width of each block is the same, but the heights are different. The respective weights of each of the entities is based on the heights of the rectangular blocks. We can easily get an overview of the respective weightages of the different entities by looking at the heights of the blocks, but precise calculations might be needed to solve the questions.
-
Line Diagrams: This type of data set consists of multiple lines in a graph. Each line (or slope of the lines) represents things like growth/sales/revenue or some other aspect of an entity. But immediately looking at the graph, we can get a sense of the good entities as well as the poorly performing entities. This is important to keep in mind as it will later help in the process of elimination.
-
Tables: This is one of the easiest topics to understand the data immediately. The data is represented in a table and normally contains several rows and a few columns. It is important to use approximations and eliminations to quickly answer questions in this topic. As the SBI PO Mains exam is now online, making notes about the elements of the table is slightly more difficult and hence, practicing these types of questions online is very important. Speed and accuracy play a key role to solve these questions.
-
Pie Charts: This is one the most important topics in Data Interpretation for SBI PO Mains exams. A circular chart is given which is divided into different sectors. The angles formed at the center of the circle represent the weights of the different entities. Remember that the total of all angles always equals 360 degrees and find the respective weights as a fraction of the total.
The questions will be mostly comparison based where the student is expected to compare the performance of different entities shown in the graphs and charts.
|
Topics |
Expected Marks |
|
Bar Charts |
10-15 |
|
Line Diagrams |
15-20 |
|
Tables |
10-15 |
|
Pie Charts |
15-20 |
|
Others |
10-15 |
|
Total |
60 (out of 200) |
Things to Remember:
-
Read the Instructions Very Carefully: Every question group is preceded by a set of instructions to understand the data. Read the instructions at least twice to not miss out on any important details which will help solve the data set.
-
Make approximations: Most of the questions can be simplified using approximations. Most of the time, a student is required to find the best/worst performance of an entity or compare the performance of two entities. In such situations (where the absolute number is not needed), a student should be able to arrive at the answer by making reasonable approximations.
-
Eliminate Options: Cracking SBI PO exam is a matter of speed and accuracy. This is especially true when you are solving data interpretation questions for SBI PO. If you are able to eliminate 2-3 options, it makes the process of arriving at the answer much quicker. As mentioned in the earlier point, making reasonable approximations, helps in the process of elimination.
-
Ignore Difficult Questions: In the case of data interpretation and analysis, as the questions are all inter related, you either get all the questions right in a data set or get all of them wrong. So, it is important to not waste time on difficult questions as the impact on time will be multifold. Going back to the first point, it is extremely important to read the instructions and ignore the data set if you are not comfortable with it.
-
Ratio and Proportion: Most of the Data Interpretation questions can be solved faster if a student is good at finding ratios and solving problems from this section. Both the topics are very related and it is advised that a student spends ample time to improve in Ratio and Proportion for Banking exams as it helps score better in DI.
Do check out our Solved Previous Papers for SBI PO and answer all the Data Interpretation Questions from it.
If you are seriously preparing for SBI PO, subscribe to our excellent Mocks Package for SBI PO and improve your performance.
