Data Interpretation & Quantitative Ability

No.of Questions: 38

This was the definitive ‘Shock and Awe’ section of the paper. Those who had decided to do this as the third section would have come a cropper as the ‘easy’ Qs were hard to find and most questions required some serious thinking and application of concepts. As a result the cut-offs are expected to be lower than last year and will certainly be the lowest of the three sections. The DI sets involved more of thinking than any hard calculations. The set on the ‘Global Soda Ash’ production was the easiest of the lot and should have been attempted. The set on the ‘Cake chain’ involved some calculations and should have been avoided as it was pretty time consuming. The caselet on the ‘Pen drive manufacturing unit’ was a sitter and should have been definitely attempted. The Arithmetic questions covered a wide variety of areas and were difficult and time consuming to say the least. The arithmetic section had very few easy questions and locating them and solving them was the key in salvaging this section. The Qs on Data Sufficiency had a couple of easy ones and would have helped students clear the cut-off.

The expected score for this section should be around 4-5 in about 40 min. A score of 12+ should be considered excellent. The cut-off is expected to be around 6-7.