Data Interpretation

Data interpretation is the most scoring and time consuming section competitive examinations. In Quantitative Aptitude section, generally, you will find at least two data interpretation sets each having 5 questions. In IBPS Probationary Officers and other similar examinations, there are 50 questions in Quantitative Aptitude section. So if you solve those two sets corrected you need to solve 10 questions out of remaining 40 questions to reach a normal cut off of 18 - 20 marks.
Here are some of the important techniques to make Data Interpretation calculations fast.

Visual Estimation
It is a well known fact that it is near to impossible to solve 200 questions in 120 minutes accurately. Term Accurately is important here because I have seen many candidates attempting 190 + questions but they fail to qualify. The reason behind their failure is the low level of accuracy and many times this accuracy level falls below 40%. Important point to be noted down here is that even if by an attempt of 190 + questions in the examinations, but with low accuracy, you get less time for questions you are definitely sure about and more so there is negative marking in most of the competitive examinations.
So reduce the time of actual working and let us have a look as to how to use Visual Estimation technique to solve Data Interpretation questions:

The data interpretation and analysis questions can be divided into four broad categories as under:

Table Charts assess your capability to analyse data in a tabular formats. Table Chart are the most common and versatile method to solve data interpretation problems.
Bar Charts show your data in the shapes of bars which have to be examined sometimes minutely to understand.
Pie Charts test your skills in visual data analysis where the data is presented in a round shape of pie by means of angular distribution or actual figures or in fractional divisions.
Line Charts presentation of data related problems is, perhaps, the simplest form and can be understood in the quickest possible manner.

Tip:  Apart from using Visual Estimation,  to score well in data interpretation questions increase your calculation speed - get faster at multiplication and division.