Data Insights Ep. 0: How to Approach GMAT Data Insights

[@iremguler5538]

I just wanted to thank GMAT ninja specially ! I took the FE today snd scored a 605 ( which I know isn’t a lot for some, however i am targeting a school in Europe where the min was 565 , i took the classic version in late January before it got suspended and scored 590,it was devastating).Even though I purchased a gmat kit from one of the providers for around 300 usd, i got all my tips and appropriate questions regarding DI from these videos!!!! For reference i am an international relations major with oddly a strong quant background, but these videos also changed how i approached the quant section, i also was EXTRA careful with each question i approached and didn’t think i was smarter than the exam , as suggested by gmat ninja. Thank you again for these videos , they have been the biggest help for me to PROPERLY understand gmat

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for the kind words, and congratulations on the great score, Beatrice! I'm so glad that we could help a bit. Good luck with your applications, and if you think of it, please let us know once you hear back from your target program -- we like good news. A lot. :) Congratulations again! - Charles

[@sahildadhwal]

One thing I've noticed is that the questions themselves aren't that difficult if you're familiar with the quant and verbal section; the tricky part is time management and sometimes understanding what's really going on in the question because some questions contain so much irrelevant information that if you're not careful, you can get really confused.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yup, I think that's spot-on. With occasional exceptions, there's not much hard "content" on Data Insights. It's just that they'll bomb you with so much excessive information -- or weird-looking displays of information -- that it's easy to get lost, flustered, or behind on time. So if your verbal and quant skills are good, the rest of it is mostly about mindset. Which isn't as easy as it sounds in many cases. :) Have fun studying, Sahil!

[@josephzenteno8293]

Is there much practice material on those “all verbal” DS questions?

[@vasubedi1464]

I would like to thank you and your team, because of your data insights and critical reasoning playlist, I was able to score 735 in gmat FE

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Congratulations!! And thank you so much for the good news -- that's an absolutely epic score. Thank you for making my day. Good luck with your applications, and please let us know where you land! - Charles

[@saheb2167]

how much time did you prepare for the exam?

[@saireddy6261]

"I am gonna beat this guy to the ground till I get it right." This single advice of what NOT to do is worth more than spending hours and hours solving 100s of questions. GMAT Ninja is a blessing to the GMAT community.

[@poojaarora9504]

Thanks, Charles! Sharing these videos is kind of a life savior for everyone who is preparing for New Focus Edition.👍👍

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much, Pooja! Always great to see you here. Have fun studying, and enjoy the weekend!

[@poojaarora9504]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring It's my pleasure, Charles. You too have a great weekend.

[@StutiN-t7u]

Would love to see a comprehensive deep dive video for all the questions types from easy to higher difficulties. Thank you!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Here you go: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6DNhH6vq8-JftU

[@sims_ran]

GMAT Ninja answering prayers I didn't know I had 🥺

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Haha! Wait until you see the video -- I only vaguely remember filming it, and it might be totally incoherent. ;)

[@sims_ran]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Just watched the video and I can confirm that this might be the most lucid explanation of Data Insights yet! :)

[@olegnurmagomedov750]

I just gave my practice exam 1 and the data insights section was so hard that I almost cried. There was a question with traffic signals and highways. It was so brutal that I spent more than 10 minutes just trying to understand what's going on, and I STILL DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT ONE BIT. Now I have my GMAT in less than a week and I have no idea how to score good in it.

[@vardanrathi7777]

How did it go?

[@olegnurmagomedov750]

@@vardanrathi7777 Surprisingly, I got a 79th percentile in Data Insights. The test was difficult, but I think my years of experience in research came in handy at guessing the right answers. I am just so thankful it all went well.

[@dradoode]

Ah yes the intersection part with number of cars. They’re so badly written it’s frustrating

[@noobdisaster]

I recently gave GFE, a supremely torrid experience concerning DI. Honestly, it's better to aim 15/17 correct in DI rather than aiming to attempt all. As Charles says, rather aptly, "Don't be a hero."

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! The GMAT Focus is still fairly new as I write this, so it's helpful to hear test-takers' perspectives on it. I have every reason to believe that your experience will be a very common one, but it's good to get some verification. :) I hope that your score was wonderful in the end, and happy new year!

[@nyarinain1878]

I am struggling with a lot of time vs accuracy issues especially on MSR and table. Please guide how to fix this issue.. it’s really frustrating!

[@anuragbose4283]

One question. Do sub questions count as a separate question? Eg: If a graphical interpretation has two following questions, would that count as 1 or 2?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

If a Graphical Interpretation or Table Analysis question has two or more sub-questions, they collectively counts as only one question out of the twenty total questions on the DI section. In order to get a question right, you need to get all the sub-questions right. A Multi-source reasoning passage, on the other hand, typically has 3 distinct questions. Any of those questions may have sub-questions, just as with GI and TA. I hope that helps!

[@sudhanshujha2394]

Dear Charles, What resources shall be used for practicing... OG main guide, DI review and DI extra problem set books collectively has around 300 Questions... Will it be exhaustive preparation for DI... Thank you.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

For starters, the bad news is that you'll want to stick with official practice materials for Data Insights. You've probably heard us say this before, but GMAC spends literally thousands of dollars developing, testing, and perfecting every test question; even the best test-prep companies can't compete with that. With the possible exception of DS, official Data Insights questions are loaded with quirks and nuances that can't really be copied easily -- so it's particularly important to stick with the official questions on those question types. It's probably OK to use non-official DS questions, but I wouldn't recommend non-official questions for any other DI question types. Are the existing official questions going to give you enough practice? That's hard to answer, just because some test-takers need more practice than others. If you include the online question banks (the GMAT Focus Starter Kit + extra practice questions for sale at mba.com), you'll have more than 600 DI practice questions -- 260+ DS questions, and 360+ for the other four question types combined. Maybe that sounds like quite a bit to you, and maybe it doesn't. If it doesn't, just use those official questions very, very carefully and thoughtfully so that you don't burn through them too early in your studies. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@sudhanshujha2394]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thank you very much for taking the time to respond... Thanks a lot!!!!

[@niralijoshi8499]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring thank you for this information

[@niralijoshi8499]

Thanks for the video it's very useful

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for watching and for taking the time to write this! Have fun studying.

[@prajwalnazre]

I bought the GMAT Focus Edition Official guide. It is said that the Data Insights section will have 5 types of questions (like Graphical Interpretation, Table Analysis etc.). But why does the guide cover only Data Sufficiency questions and nothing from the other 4 types of questions? What is a good source material for preparing the other question types from Dat Insights section?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

The GMAT Official Guide (and Data Insights Guide) include all five Data Insights question types. The funky thing is that only Data Sufficiency questions make any sense in a printed version of a book; the other four question types are only available digitally. So you'll have to log into your mba.com account, and enter a code from your book(s) to access the other four DI question types online. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@prajwalnazre]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Wow, this is a news to me. Thank you very much! I was scratching my head from a very long time. Your videos are amazing and very insightful. ❤️

[@PrathamS25]

What topics should we consider for studying DS for focus edition? Like we can ignore inequalities, numbers, etc. But can anyone give a list of which questions to practice for FE DS.?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Any topic that appears on GMAT quant is fair game for Data Insights, though some topics appear more often in Data Sufficiency questions than others. Nearly all of the Data Sufficiency questions on the GMAT Focus are word problems. As a result, certain topics -- such as percents, algebra of various sorts, ratios, rates, and overlapping sets, among others -- are more likely to appear, since those topics are easier to turn into word problems. But any quant topic can appear in DS questions, and you'll see a small number of questions that deal with topics like inequalities, number properties, or probability. The good news: if you're preparing thoroughly for GMAT quant, you won't need to study any additional quant topics for Data Insights. If you're ignoring "minor" topics like inequalities or number properties, that's risky for the quant section -- and for Data Insights, too. I hope that helps a bit!

[@SatishSahoo-s1h]

Hi, in the Official GMAT focus edition book it says that the DI section is NOT computer adaptive.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

That's a mistake that GMAC has publicly acknowledged. Integrated Reasoning was the predecessor to DI, and it wasn't computer adaptive -- so I think they just carried over the language, and didn't catch the mistake until the book was printed. So yes: DI is definitely adaptive. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@SatishSahoo-s1h]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thanks

[@ravleenmalhotra1939]

Which topics from Quant NEED to be completed before you start studying for DI section? Thanks in advance :)

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

On one hand, absolutely any GMAT quant topic is fair game on Data Insights. So in theory, you'll get the most out of your DI practice if you have a good background in pretty much everything on quant. That said, I wouldn't necessarily say that you NEED to 100% complete everything on GMAT quant before tackling DI. For starters, some quant topics seem to appear more frequently on DI than others -- we've seen lots of word problems, percents, and statistics concepts on DI, but not all that much number properties, for example. So you could focus more on the quant topics that seem to be more common on DI. The other nuance is that your quant skills may or may not be a significant factor holding you back from your score goals. Yes, many DI questions are quant-based in some way, but plenty don't really rely on quant skills -- and others rely on only very basic quant foundations. So if you're reasonably close to your goals, it's very possible that you mostly need to improve your approach to the DI section -- and you might not need to spend THAT much time polishing your quant skills beforehand, depending on your exact strengths, weaknesses, and goals. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@ravleenmalhotra1939]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring tysm for the detailed explanation, this helps a lot :)

[@uditdhiman850]

Hi Charles, can you please share link to buy official practice sets for DI. Thanks

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

There are three significant sources for official DI questions: - GMAT Official Guide 2023-24: amzn.to/3T05R9e. - GMAT Official Data Insights Review Guide 2023-24: amzn.to/3wEPQy1. - Mba.com DI Online Practice Questions: www.mba.com/exam-prep/gmat-focus-official-practice-questions-data-insights There are also a small number of DI questions in the free GMAT Focus Starter Kit at mba.com. Enjoy!

[@indiacharliesierra]

Hello Sir! Thank you again for a great playlist, but while I understand the Quant Playlist is not updated and the team is working on it. Shall I watch Quant videos first and then come back here later once I complete Quant Playlist of Old GMAT? I have a similar confusion for Verbal section as well like which playlist to do first and which one to to do in sequence. Please advise. Thank you in advance.

[@vardanrathi7777]

Only Geometry is gone (from Classic to Focus). Rest remains the same. They have removed the Geometry video from the quant playlist. What else are you waiting to get updated?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

There's no one-size-fits all answer to this, unfortunately. In theory, yes: it makes sense to bolster your quant and verbal foundations before tackling DI, mostly because you'll get more out of the finite supply of official DI questions if you don't have any major holes in your quant or reading skills. That said, it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish and on what your weaknesses are. If, for example, you're already scoring in your target range on quant and verbal -- but not on DI -- then you might want to jump into the DI videos sooner rather than later. Regarding the quant series: all of the content in the current playlist is 100% relevant for the GMAT Focus, and it covers all of the core topics that you'll see on the current GMAT quant section. Yes, we're updating the videos in the next couple of months so that the videos refer to the new score scale, and so that the videos reflect the fact that DS is now on a different section. But the content itself will be largely unchanged in the new videos, other than polishing a few minor things here or there. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@josephzenteno8293]

If we review this series of videos, will that compromise our scores on the GMAT Focus Edition mocks tests?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Apologies if I'm not quite interpreting your question correctly, but are you asking whether we use any practice test questions in these videos? If so, the answer is no: all of the questions in our videos come from sources other than the mba.com practice exams. So watching these videos won't artificially inflate your practice test scores. I hope that helps!

[@josephzenteno8293]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring that is exactly what I was asking, my turn of phrase notwithstanding so I sincerely thank you

[@ErikaHetemi]

Hi Gmat Ninja, I am new to your channel and new to Gmat exam. I am interested in Gmat classic format but I noticed that IR and AWA does not impact the final score of the exam. Does this mean we have to ignore those two parts? How about Universities? If not, is this playlist of data insights Gmat Focus useful in this case for me too? Also, I would be happy if you can guide me to some other safe websites for Gmat preparation, since I almost finished all your playlists. I really liked your way of teaching thats why I believe you can guide me in some right and offical websites. Thank you very much!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Welcome to the GMAT, Erika! Bad news: the "classic" GMAT format is no longer available, and the GMAT Focus Edition is the only version of the GMAT that you can take. So you're stuck with Data Insights now, for better or worse, unless you want to switch to the GRE or EA. Our videos should have you covered for all of the major content on the current version of the GMAT, but for high-quality practice materials, there's no substitute for official questions and practice exams. If you haven't already, pick up all of the official guides (this bundle, for example: amzn.to/3QFjAlx), and use that as the backbone of your practice. You'll also spend plenty of quality time on mba.com, which is where you'll find 6 GMAT Focus practice exams (2 free, 4 paid) and many of the DI practice questions. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@Santtii10]

Hi Charles! Thanks for all your videos! Just wanted to ask you which one do you think is the best way to practice data insight questions (as e.g. for verbal is LSAT prep test).

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for watching! Sadly, the only truly worthwhile source for DI questions is the GMAT official materials, including the Official Guide, Official Guide for Data Insights Review, and the online question banks available at mba.com. You might have heard us say this elsewhere, but GMAC (and LSAC, the company that produces the LSAT) spends literally thousands of dollars perfecting every official question, so official materials are always the best source of practice questions. In the case of DI (with the exception of DS -- more on that in a moment), no test-prep company can realistically mimic the nuances of those questions. And unfortunately, DI-like questions don't appear on any other standardized exams. So all you can do is stick with the official GMAT materials for DI. The only potential exception is Data Sufficiency -- non-official questions of this type can be good practice, even if they aren't exactly like the real thing. But you might find that the official DS questions are enough for you, anyway. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@Santtii10]

Thanks for your time!!

[@hussainmunim]

Hey guys, stupid question: would you say going over the Data Insights material will help in Integrated Reasoning or not?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Definitely! Integrated Reasoning and Data Insights are nearly identical -- the only difference is that the IR section (of the EA or the old GMAT) is shorter, and it doesn't include Data Sufficiency. So Data Insights materials should help you quite a bit with IR, too.

[@hussainmunim]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Got it, thanks!

[@BrownsAmilra]

Can anyone tell me that does the OG data review has all the questions type? I have bought an ebook from a friend recently and all of the practice questions is DS.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

When you buy the 2023-24 Official Guide or 2023-24 Official Data Insights Review Guide, DS is the only question type that appears in the book itself. (This is true for both the physical book and the ebook.) The other four Data Insights question types appear only in your mba.com account, after providing an activation code from the book you purchased. If you bought a used ebook, the trouble is that the non-DS questions probably appear in your friend's mba.com account. I suppose you could contact GMAC customer service to see if they can help, but in all likelihood, you'll need your friend's mba.com login to access those questions. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@BrownsAmilra]

thank you so much @@GMATNinjaTutoring

[@PrathamS25]

Can somebody give links to the free materials available to study data insights?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Here's a complete, free video series for Data Insights: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6DNhH6vq8-JftU&pp=gAQBiAQB. For practice questions, there's no substitute for the GMAT official guides, especially for Verbal and Data Insights. So those are well worth the investment. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!