GMAT Integrated Reasoning (Data Insights): Key Strategies for Success

With the introduction of the GMAT exam – Focus Edition, the GMAT Integrated Reasoning is now known as Data Insights. It is now an important section that will be added to the final score. The introduction of this section in GMAT exam – Focus Edition reflects the relevance of data literacy and analytics in the business world.  

The Data Insights Section of the GMAT exam – Focus Edition exam assesses a test taker’s ability to analyze complex data and withdraw meaningful insights out of it. This section evaluates skills in data analysis, verbal reasoning, and quantitative aptitude, which are essential for taking certain decisions in a business environment. 

In the Data Insights section, a test taker will have 20 questions to be answered within 45 minutes. There is the availability of on-screen calculators for this section only and not in the Quantitative reasoning section. 

To get an idea how does a section looks like, book an expert session with Manya -The Princeton Review experts to discuss the same. Do not forget to discuss GMAT Practice Tests with your experts to know how important it is to diagnose yourself by giving mock tests and analyzing your weak concepts. Also, you can access GMAT exam Focus mock tests by getting enrolled for a course preparation duly crafted after extensive research by the experts of The Princeton Review. 

On the GMAT Focus Edition, Data Insights majorly consists of two sections: 

Data Sufficiency

The number of words read so far today is thrice the number of words you have read yesterday. Test takers must evaluate the information provided and decide if it is enough to arrive at a definitive answer.

So, such questions have a question stem following which always two statements are given.
You always assess each statement alone (for example: if you assess the Statement 1 alone you are blind to the Statement 2 and vice versa) to say whether it is sufficient to answer the question with just one final answer. In case both are insufficient alone, you try combining information from both the statements together and then assessing if you’re getting a unique final answer.

Data Sufficiency questions have their answers predefined. This is why assessing the answers should have a strategy. Your classroom course will help you devise such strategies whereby just looking at the problem you’ll be able to realize out of 5 possible answers you can always eliminate 2 or more options by just assessing Statement 1. If you are surprised at how, book an expert session with the GMAT exam experts guiding students at Manya-The Princeton Review.

Let us see a very basic Question: 

For example: 

Question Stem: How many words have you read so far today? 

1. The number of words read so far today is thrice the number of words you have read yesterday. 
2. Yesterday, the number of words you read yesterday was 2024 words. 

You realize you can’t answer with one numerical value as with just Statement 1 alone the number of words you have read yesterday could be anything and thereby multiple final answers are possible.  

Hence, Statement 1 is insufficient. Likewise, statement 2 alone (ignoring Statement 1 as whenever you assess a fresh statement you are blind to other statement) is insufficient as there’s no relationship with what you have read yesterday with the number of words you’ve read today. 

Now, you should take both statements together and see whether you’re getting a definitive answer or not. There are test takers who would struggle to solve and get a value and then understand they just have to choose A or B or C or D or E where in no answer you get that value whichever is needed. So, most of the time the realization of the Sufficiency of the statement is enough to support it than just diving deep to get a numerical value and then you say it is sufficient which will eat up most of our time. 

Like for the above question someone will find the number of words you have read today (Combining the Statements) = 3 × 2024 = 6072 words and then say combining the Statements together is sufficient to answer the final question. But someone will realize the number of words you have read yesterday has been fixed and multiplying three to it will also be a fixed value. It leads you to say combining the statements together gives a fixed value which we have discussed above is supposed to be said as sufficient information based on unique final answer. Such realizations are necessary to reduce the time of solving and comes with practicing such variety of problems only. 

• Data Sufficiency questions can either be of Verbal Reasoning (Logical) or Quantitative Reasoning (Logical) or mix of both Verbal as well as Quantitative Reasoning. 
• When it comes to Quantitative Reasoning being tested in data Sufficiency format, you are tested for arithmetic, algebra and number theory concepts. 
• When it comes to Verbal Reasoning being tested in data Sufficiency format, you are tested for critical thinking, analytical interpretation, and logical reasoning of literary pieces of information. 
• When they try to mix Quantitative and Verbal reasoning, they try to play with more of logical reasoning. 

GMAT Integrated Reasoning

Four types of questions appear in GMAT Integrated Reasoning format:

• Graphics Interpretation

Test takers are presented with graphical representations such as charts or graphs. They must analyze and interpret the data visualizations to answer questions about trends, patterns, or relationships depicted in the graphics. 

1. Questions on the GMAT Integrated Reasoning section where information is represented through graphs and analysis of graph is assessed in the form or questions like fill up ones wherein for each blank there may come a drop down from, which you will pick an answer after having assessed the part of the graph(s) they wanted you to look at. 
2. Most of these questions become easy when you apply the process of elimination, making yourself convinced that this option can never be the answer, hence eliminated. 
3. It’s very imperative to open the drop down and see from what answer choices you must pick an answer. Sometimes you may assess a lot of the graph by just reading out the question preceding the blank. But later you realize only three options were given from where you were supposed to pick an answer. So, accessing drop down if fill-in-the-blank turns up and implementing Process of elimination will help you ace.

• Table Analysis

Such questions on the GMAT Integrated Reasoning section come with a table listed along with option to sort and then answer the question which appears in statement form against which a yes or a no needs to be marked. Enough practice of variety of questions like these is important. For smooth experience of solving everything at one window, book your GMAT Practice Tests with Manya -The Princeton Review.  

Being clever on when to sort, when to finish calculations and then mark a yes or a no against a statement and when to approximate are some keys to unlock a good score particularly in table analysis questions.  

For Example: You might not want to finish calculations (4123/1344) to say whether this number is greater than 2 or not. 

1. Translating word by word and converting it to a math expression or equation, the moment you read it will help more than reading back and forth without scribbling anything on your scratch paper.  
2. Do not get moved away by heavy text blurbs which are not going to help you in solving the question. Assess what information is important to the question on the screen.

• Two-Part Analysis

This question type requires test takers to solve problems that involve multiple steps or considerations. It assesses the ability to analyze a situation, apply relevant concepts, and arrive at the correct answer by considering various factors.

Such questions on the GMAT Integrated Reasoning section come with a question stem representing a situation either using variables or values. They would give you two parts as two questions with the same list of answers listed in columns to choose from. Since the question stem is common to both the questions appearing as two different parts, these two questions can either be linked or not, which a test taker should analyze while solving the problem and make an approach. Linked as in if you answer one column or the question is the same. you’ll understand relative to it what should be the answer of other question. Assessing this will reduce your time solving the questions.

You must have learnt to do questions meant for the Quantitative reasoning section. Do not get moved away by heavy text blurbs which are not going to help you in solving the question. Assess what information is important to the question on the screen.

• Multi-Source Reasoning

This question type will provide a test taker with different pieces of information in the form of data. Just like reading comprehension questions, it will require a test taker to logically analyze data from multiple sources that can include a graph, numeric data, or textual data and draw inferences or conclusions by understanding the relationship between them. 

Such questions on the GMAT Integrated Reasoning section come with the information in multiple tabs where questions can be either in statement form needing just a yes or a no or as a multiple-choice question (Problem solving) to answer it from the available answer choices. 

If one is good at quickly catching the keywords of the question and finds out similar keywords from heavy text blurbs given in multiple tabs, it will take less time to get an answer. 

Otherwise reading the whole lot of information will not be beneficial given the time, just 45 minutes for 20 questions. Translating word by word and converting it to a math expression or equation, the moment you read it will help more than reading back and forth without scribbling anything on your scratch paper. 

Do not get moved away by heavy text blurbs which are not going to help you in solving the question. Assess what information is important to the question on the screen.

BREAK-UP OF QUESTIONS

The Data Insights Section consists of 20 questions. Out of which, 5-8 questions roughly come from Data Sufficiency and the remaining 12-15 questions are from Table Analysis, Multi-source reasoning, Graphical Interpretation or Two–part Analysis are a part of GMAT Integrated Reasoning. The score ranges from 60 to 90 and adds to the overall score of 205-805. To get a credited score in the Data Insight questions, all the sub-questions of one question should be answered correctly, else even in the case of one incorrect answer versus other correct answers, the score credited will be zero. Make sure that you have completely analyzed all GMAT Practice tests done before appearing for a new one out of the available GMAT practice tests. Also ensure the official GMAT Practice tests modelled by Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) are done before you appear for actual GMAT exam. 

Skills Tested

The GMAT focus Data Insights section tests these skills:

• Data Interpretation and Analysis

It examines your ability to understand and explicate complex information from varied pieces of data and derive a conclusion or inference out of it.

• Critical Thinking

This skill requires you to evaluate argumentative statements or claims based on the data provided and tests your ability to critically assess information and make logical assumptions based on it.

• Analytical Reasoning

Analytical reasoning tests your ability to inspect information from argumentative pieces of information and draw logical conclusions from the given data.

• Quantitative Reasoning

Although complex calculations are not necessary, but application of quantitative reasoning is an integral tool to understand and solve the questions containing quantitative data. 

• Information Conflation

This skill assesses your ability to combine and blend different data points to create a comprehensive and crisp picture and determine the best problem-solving strategy. 

• Data Sufficiency

This skill requires a test taker to scrutinize the data given and determine whether the data provided is sufficient to answer the given question(s).

• Decision Making

This skill requires the application of all the above-mentioned skills in a combined manner to guide you to make logical decisions based on the variety of data presented with.  

• Comprehension

This skill requires you to investigate the data via a critical lens. It requires you to assess the data, understand the relationship between the different pieces and provide sound reasoning either by combining all the information or certain required pieces.

These skills are crucial not only for the GMAT exam but also in fields where data interpretation and analysis play key roles.