Banking Exam Data Interpretation Guide 2024: Check Tips & Tricks to Solve Questions

Data interpretation questions form a major part of all banking exam papers. It is only through practice that banking aspirants can attempt questions in Data Interpretation accurately. Here is the complete Banking exam data interpretation guide.

Data interpretation is one of the most important topics for banking exams, in all banking exams, several questions are being asked on this topic in the Quantitative Aptitude section. If we closely analyse the questions, we can easily understand how the levels of the data interpretation questions change with different exams. Due to lack of practice and not knowing proper techniques, candidates often take a lot of time to solve DI questions and they cannot finish the paper on time. For all banking aspirants it’s highly beneficial to learn techniques to solve DI questions to score well in quantitative aptitude section.

What is Data Interpretation?  

If we look at the trend, pattern of the DI questions has changed over the years. DI questions asked in banking exams few years back are not any more similar to the questions we get to see these days in banking exams. Every year, in IBPS PO or IBPS SO or SBI SO exam candidates have to encounter new types of questions. Therefore, it may not be of any help if you practice just a specific set of questions. Here the question arises, how to ace the data interpretation section? To answer this question, detailed analysis is important on this topic.

DI questions have two parts, a paragraph or bar diagram or chart or graph containing all necessary information and questions with alternative answers. Candidates have to analyse the information provided in the paragraph or bar diagram and based on that they have to calculate and choose the right answers.

The aim of such questions is to test the analytical and numerical ability of the candidates which are considered necessary quality for a bank employee. The questions of DI section can be asked from any topic such as percentage, profit and loss, time and distance, simple interest, compound interest, mensuration, probability etc. If candidates have a firm hold on these topics, they can solve the questions by extracting data or information given in the paragraph or bar diagram or chart or graph.

Types of Data Interpretation Questions for Banking Exams

The different types of Data Interpretation questions for banking exams are given below:

Paragraph or Caselet Form

In such type of DI questions, information is given in simple paragraphical form without using any image or table or graph. While answering the questions, candidates have to connect all the information given and based on that all calculations are to be done.

Pie Chart

A pie chart is a circular representation of data. One or more pie charts may be given in a single question to extract data from them and answer the questions.

Tabular DI

Tabular DI is one of the basic form of DI questions asked in banking exams, such questions are often asked in IBPS clerk or SBI clerk exam. Here, information is represented in tabular form. Tabular DI is also of two types where all the data is given and the other one is where some data is missing where candidates need to find out those missing value before solving the questions.

Bar Diagram

In such type of questions, information is provided in the form of a bar diagram of different shades or colour. Data can be extracted from the bar graph and accordingly one has to solve the questions.

Line Graph

In Line graph DI questions, two points will be joined together thus forming a slope which will either indicate growth or decline. There are several points or intersections on the lines which are used to interpret data while answering the questions.

Missing Data

This is the most critical form of DI among all. A table or pie chart or caselet may be given with few elements missing, candidates need to find the missing elements and solve the questions.

Tips and Techniques to Solve Data Interpretation Questions

Following tips are helpful in solving DI questions in most critical form:

1. Clear your mathematical fundamentals: As discussed, all DI questions are some form of mathematical calculations, different form of mathematical formulas need to use while solving the questions. Hence, it is very important to have a clear understanding of the topics, your fundamentals and basics should be strong enough to solve the trickiest form of the questions. Learn all mathematical formulas and practice basic questions from each topic to develop a firm hold on them.
2. Improve your calculation, speed and accuracy: All these three factors, calculation, speed and accuracy play a crucial role in solving DI questions. During exam, in such an environment, candidates must keep their mind calm to avoid miscalculations. Also, regular practice, a lot of it, will certainly improve your speed and accuracy. All these three factors will combinedly have a positive effect on your approach to solve DI questions.
3. Mull over the questions: Don’t be sacred of the size and number of information provided in the question, more information makes the questions easy to interpret. Read the question statement carefully and analyse the information. It is advisable to go through the entire question once and then read it once again to understand it as a whole. Do your rough work neatly and proceed with the data received in each step to reach the final result.
4. Keep your practice game high: Practicing DI questions is the most important task in front of the candidates to score well in this section. Practice different types of questions from books and online sources, practice daily without a miss.

Data Interpretation Sample Questions

Direction (Q1 – Q3): Study the data given below carefully and answer the following questions:

The table given below gives the data of a clothing brand “X” which own stores in different cities in India. The monthly profit of the brand in different cities has been given in the table.

Months	Cities with their Monthly Profit
	Lucknow	Mumbai	Delhi	Chandigarh	Chennai
January	Rs. 45000	Rs. 33000	Rs. 23400	Rs. 65000	Rs. 13000
February	Rs. 34500	Rs. 43000	Rs. 34560	Rs. 64500	Rs. 28000
March	Rs. 33000	Rs. 56500	Rs. 43200	Rs. 12340	Rs. 66000
April	Rs. 50000	Rs. 12000	Rs. 17000	Rs. 19000	Rs. 22000
May	Rs. 65000	Rs. 45000	Rs. 34000	Rs. 23500	Rs. 45400

Q 1. What is the average profit earned by company X in the month of April for all the cities combined together?

1. Rs. 25000
2. Rs. 24000
3. Rs. 45000
4. Rs. 33000
5. Rs. 23000

Q 2. Which of the given cities has earned the maximum profit for the 5 months combined together?

1. Chennai
2. Mumbai
3. Lucknow
4. Chandigarh
5. Delhi

Q 3. What is the difference between the maximum profit earned by company X in Lucknow and the minimum profit earned by company X in Chennai?

1. Rs. 45000
2. Rs. 52000
3. Rs. 34000
4. Rs. 65000
5. Cannot be calculated

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