GMAT Data Insights
Data Insights—Find the Reward in Your Answer!
The introduction of the Data Insights section was one of the major changes brought about in the GMAT Focus Edition in 2023. Combining the Integrated Reasoning and Data Sufficiency elements of the former GMAT exam, the GMAT Data Insights section is designed to test your ability to analyze and synthesize data from multiple sources and make informed decisions.
GMAT Data Insights questions—like all questions on the GMAT exam—are difficult and expensive to produce. Psychometricians go through multiple stages of question writing, meaning that a single GMAT question can go through 12 months of iterations, edits, and quality checks before being approved by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).
For this reason, test takers should avoid using unofficial practice questions at all costs. At best, these unofficial questions will not test the data interpretation and critical reasoning skills that the GMAT prides itself on testing. However, at worst, they can reinforce inefficient and non-strategic methods of approaching the GMAT.
Below, we'll walk you through an official GMAT Data Insights practice question with a detailed explanation to help you get acclimated to this new GMAT section.
Best Practices for Data Insights Questions
For the four types of questions in the Data Insights section other than Data Sufficiency questions—Multi-Source Reasoning questions, Graphics Interpretation questions, Table Analysis questions, and Two-Part Analysis questions—there is an extremely wide range of presentations for the different scenarios, graphs, tables, etc.
As a result, these questions are a little harder to prepare for! Sometimes the questions address very particular math concepts—weighted average, venn diagram, probability, data analysis—and sometimes the issues relate more to reading comprehension and critical reasoning.
Overall, regardless of the question type, there are a few important strategies and best practices when attacking Data Insights questions.
#1 Read Carefully and Answer the Proper Question
By far, these are the two most important skills when solving Data Insights questions, particularly in Multi-Source Reasoning questions.
The wording and interpretation tricks on Data Insights questions are quite sophisticated so they require an obsessive attention to details and wording.
#2 Learn to Sort Through Unnecessary "Garbage" and Navigate Red Herrings
A big part of what is being tested in Data Insights is your ability to figure out what matters in a sea of information.
Essentially, these problems are designed to differentiate between those who can efficiently sort through data to answer particular questions and those who get sidetracked by irrelevant or purposefully misleading information.
With this in mind, it is important that you always examine questions and prompts before diving headfirst into complex graphs, tables, and sets of information. Get a general sense of provided information but then immediately go to the prompts so you know exactly what you need to do.
#3 Know the Traps and Cons Associated with Different Question Types
Whenever there is percentage and absolute number data, don't accidentally conflate the two; know what a positive and negative correlation look like; don't get your answers reversed in confusing two-part analysis questions; etc.
#4 Remember: All Prompts Must Be Correct to Get Credit for a Question
If you have spent a lot of time getting two of the three prompts correct, make damn sure you don't get sloppy or lazy on the remaining one—otherwise you risk your credit for the whole question!
How to Improve on the GMAT Data Insights Section
Because Data Insights questions are so varied and contain so much abstract and often irrelevant information, you need a set of best practices and guiding principles as outlined above.
However, in order to improve your scores in the GMAT Data Insights section, you should keep a detailed error log. Then, whenever you miss a Data Insights question, always ask yourself the following questions to improve on future problems:
- Did I miss this because I don't understand a core math concept or core principle of logic and critical reasoning? If so, make sure you study the concept and principle so you are better prepared the next time it is tested.
- Did I miss this question because I misinterpreted tricky wording or answered the wrong question? If so, figure out exactly how you were tricked into that wording mistake and be on the lookout for this type of difficulty in the future.
- Did I not properly understand a certain graph type or did I not sort a table of data in the most effective way? If so, learn the specifics of that graph type or get more skilled at sorting tables in the most effective way for a given prompt.
- Did I waste time on irrelevant information that was intellectually engaging but not relevant to the particular prompts in the question? If so, realize that a lot of the data presented is unimportant in these questions and use prompts and questions actively to quickly find what really matters in the provided information and data.
With lots of practice on each of the four question types, important patterns emerge for how GMAT test writers make questions difficult and how to answer prompts more accurately and efficiently.
Data Insights is a challenging section that requires a primary focus on strategy and approach rather than on memorizing or learning particular math skills/content knowledge.
GMAT Data Insights, Sample Question #1
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Explanation
Detailed Solution
Scatterplot graphs are relatively common in Graphics Interpretation questions, so it is a good idea to have a basic understanding of this graph type.
As explained in the instructions, this particular graph plots 65 points of data relating to the average score for math and reading in different education systems. As an example, if an education system had an average score of 400 in math and 412 in reading, then one point would be placed to reflect each score in the x-axis (math) and y-axis (reading) at those levels. If the scores were the same, then the point would fall exactly in the middle along the solid line. The further left of the line a point is, the higher the reading score is compared to math in that education system, and the further right of the line a point is, the higher the math score is compared to reading.
With that basic understanding of the graph, you should then look at the prompts to see in particular what tasks you need to perform.
Prompt #1 is relatively straightforward.
The question is simply asking what percentage of the 65 data points lie to the right of the middle line, since points lie in that zone when M > R. For this type of question, you can always eyeball the answer and it would be unnecessary to actually count points…the range of the answers will be such that you can do it visually.
It is clear from the graph that more data points lie to the left of the line, but not by a lot. If you had to give a figure without using answers, most would guess around 40-45% are to the right and thus the answer of 25-50% in the drop down menu is correct.
NOTE: as discussed in the best practices section, you should double check that you are answering the proper question and not accidentally looking at points in which R > M instead of M > R.
When a prompt is relatively straightforward in a question, you should always double check that you have not fallen for a con and then look to the other prompt(s) to be clever or tricky.
Prompt #2 is exactly that—and it is amazing how many students miss it!
In terms of what this prompt is asking, you need to find the point above the line that is farthest to the left. The farther left you are, the lower the math score is for a particular reading score and the difference between the two would be the greatest in which R > M. Imagine a point at 380 in the x-axis that is at 500 on the y-axis…that point would be WAY left of the center line and the amount of difference would be very large (120).
In searching for the point that is furthest left, you have a few candidates at first glance. By looking carefully, you can see that the point straight up from around 405 on the math x-axis (circled in the graph below) is farthest left. It goes a full block + ¾ of a block to the left and none of the others do that.
Interestingly, almost everyone does that task correctly. The mistake they then make is that they see it is between 400 and 420 on the x-axis and incorrectly pick that range in the drop-down menu, when the prompt is asking for the range of r on the y-axis!
Because you naturally look at this graph in the x-axis, it is very easy to make this mistake, and this trick has been used on many scatterplot graph questions. If you look at the R interval on the y-axis in which that point lies, you see that the correct answer
Correct Answer
is between 440 and 460. Even if you do the most important tasks correctly on this question, it is still easy to miss it, and a lot of smart students fall into traps just like these in the GMAT Data Insights section.
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