Do you get confused when you see Line graph in DI section OR different data organized in form of line graphs?
This post will clear out your confusion and will give you detailed insight into different forms of line graphs. Read, you got it right-playing with numbers.
Foreword of Line-graphs:
Data that can be represented using line charts represents data over months or years in a graphical format. This data can be for a single variable over a period of time or multiple line graphs can be used to represent more than one variable. For the data interpretation section in any entrance test, bar charts are common. So are questions based on line graphs; else questions are asked from pie charts, data in table form, etc. Area charts, scatter charts and bubbles are also used to represent data.
Question types and examples of Line graph in DI section:
Data for one variable: Indices
Data on one variable can be presented in the form of a line graph. This represents change in a variable when the variable on x-axis changes.
Example: Data on inflation can be represented in the form of a line graph. One of the values can be considered as 100. Other values will be taken as a value lower than or higher than this depending on the difference in value with the value that has been taken as 100. This represents an index. This kind of question is featured in MBA entrances, SSC exams and Bank exams.
- Line graphs for multiple variables
Questions on this kind of data are generally on percentage change over two months for any of the variables.
Example: Data on consumption of petrol and diesel can be represented in this form. The data may be for consumption over months in a year. Highest or lowest percentage change and increase or reduction in another variable for such a change can be asked in SSC CGL and B-school entrance tests.
- Line graphs, bar chart and a 3-D representation
A combination of line graphs and bar graphs are often seen in management reports. This is also true for newspapers. Whenever it comes to working on data interpretation skills, newspaper graphs and data sets are the ones that students are asked to see on a regular basis. Working on this data on a daily basis helps candidates understand how data can be presented.
A combination of line graphs and bar charts could be about data over the years with bars representing one data type and the line graph representing another value. Bubbles give a 3-D representation of a variable for the units under consideration. This represents a value giving the difference in values using the size of the sphere in the graph.
Example: Data on number of hits for various categories of blogs can be represented in the form of a bubbles graph. If we consider several values – number of hits on social media, number of views on the website, can be represented as a combination of bar chart and line graph with 3-D bubbles. Questions on percentage of hits for a category, number of views can be asked.
Strategy for solving
- Line graphs can be for only one variable and also for multiple variables. The level of difficulty in case of multiple variables is greater than that for bar chart questions in Data Interpretation.
- These questions may take time but these can be easier than other questions. This kind of data set is thus one of the sets to be attempted if the more difficult ones cannot be solved easily. These are straightforward questions. Mathematical calculation speed matters.
- If you are not that keen on giving time to the kind of questions that are not straightforward, your calculation speed is what will increase your score.
The strategies presented in this post will promote the understanding of all students for Line graph in DI section. Incorporating these concepts will provide them with the opportunity to experience success in their performance in the entrance exams.
You might like to read our post on Data Interpretation: simplifying hat the numbers convey.
