How should I handle Data Interpretation in SBI Clerk?

DI often carries 10-15 Quant questions in Prelims and more in Mains. It looks long, but most questions use only three skills: percentage change, ratio and average.

Types to practise

• Table, bar graph, line graph, pie chart
• Mixed charts (bar + line, two pies)
• Caselet (data written as a paragraph) and missing-value DI, more common in Mains

How to approach a set

1. Read the chart first: title, units (thousands, lakhs, percent), and what each axis or column means. Many wrong answers come from missing "in thousands".
2. Read the question, then go to the data. Use only the rows or bars it needs.
3. Approximate. If options are far apart, 3,987 is 4,000 and 24.8% is 25%.
4. Skip a calculation-heavy question and return to it at the end of the set.

Core formulas

Timing

Aim for a five-question set in about 5-6 minutes in Prelims. If a set has awkward numbers everywhere, it is fine to leave it and use the time on arithmetic.

Common DI traps

• Percent vs percentage points: a rise from 20% to 25% is 5 percentage points but a 25% increase.
• Average of percentages: you cannot average percentages of different bases directly.
• Order of a ratio: "ratio of A to B" is A : B, not B : A.
• Base year: "growth over the previous year" uses the previous year as the base.