Data Interpretation, approach + real CAT sets

CAT 2003, Wholesale Price Index (WPI). Base year 1993-94 = 100 for every item; all later prices are relative to the base. (Prices rose, so a higher index means a costlier item.)

CAT 1999, Drinking water & sanitation coverage (% of population). Country A dominates B (A > B) if A has a higher total percentage for both drinking water and sanitation. A country is on the coverage frontier if no other country dominates it.

CAT 2003, Cumulative counts of children. Each table gives the number of children not exceeding that age / height / weight. Assume an older child is always taller and heavier than a younger one.

CAT 2000, IT industry in India (US$ million). Figures show domestic and export revenue across segments.

CAT 2017, Entry-level smartphone brands (2016). Profitability = profit as a % of revenue.

In 2017, total volume grew 40%. Cxqi gave a 40% discount (price ₹18,000), gaining 15% market share (→ 30%); the other three each lost 5% share. Cxqi's profitability halved to 20%; the other three kept their 2016 prices and profitability.

CAT 2017, An old woman's assets. She has: ₹70 lakh in bank deposits, 1 house worth ₹50 lakh, 3 flats each worth ₹30 lakh, and a certain number of gold coins each worth ₹1 lakh. She distributes among three daughters, Neeta, Seeta, Geeta. The house, any flat or any coin is indivisible.

CAT 2005, Management institute faculty. Founded 1 Jan 2000 with 3, 4, 5, 6 faculty in Marketing, OB, Finance, OM respectively. Over the next four years one faculty was recruited in each area; each new joiner was 25 at joining and joined on 1 April. During these years one faculty retired at age 60. The chart gives area-wise average age on 1 April of 2000-2003 (a group's average age rises by exactly 1 each year if no one joins/leaves).

Note: the average-age figures are read from the book's bar chart; trends (not exact decimals) drive the answers.

CAT 2008, Three traders (boom/fluctuating market). Abdul buys all shares at the 10 am open and sells the whole lot at the 3 pm close. Bikram buys an equal number of shares each hour (10, 11, 12, 1, 2) and sells at close. Chetan buys hourly too, but divides his total investment equally across purchases (so he buys more when price is low). "Return" = profit ÷ investment, as a %.

CAT 1995, Two machines. M1 and M2 can each independently make product P or Q. Time (minutes) to make one unit. Each machine runs 8 hours (480 min) per day.

CAT 2002, Traffic signals. Signal meanings: 3 Red = Stop · 2 Red = Turn Left · 1 Red = Turn Right · 3 Green = Go @100 kmph · 2 Green = Go @40 kmph · 1 Green = Go @20 kmph. A man heads North and obeys this sequence:

CAT 2003, Birth & death rates by country. Countries are merged into one ranked list, ranked first by birth rate (lower = higher rank), and ties broken by death rate (lower = higher rank). Countries with identical birth and death rates share a rank; the next country then skips accordingly.

(The full set also lists Europe and Africa; the rows above are those the questions below turn on.)

CAT 2008, College cut-offs. A test has four sections (A-D), each out of 50. A student is admitted by a college only if she meets every sectional cut-off and the aggregate cut-off of that college. Blank = no sectional cut-off for that section.

CAT 2024, Over the top (OTT) subscribers. OTT subscribers of a platform are segregated into three categories: i) Kid, ii) Elder, and iii) Others. Some of the subscribers used one app and the others used multiple apps to access the platform. A figure (not reproduced) gives the percentage distribution across categories for 2023 and 2024. The following additional information is known: (i) the total number of subscribers increased by 10% from 2023 to 2024; (ii) in 2024, 1/2 of the subscribers from the 'Kid' category and 2/3 of the subscribers from the 'Elder' category used one app; (iii) in 2023, the number of subscribers from the 'Kid' category who used multiple apps was the same as the number of subscribers from the 'Elder' category who used one app; (iv) 10,000 subscribers from the 'Kid' category used one app and 15,000 subscribers from the 'Elder' category used multiple apps in 2023.

Note: the original set includes a percentage-distribution figure; the four questions and official answers below are reproduced verbatim from the CAT 2024 Slot 3 paper.

CAT 2025, Train ticket reservations. A train travels from Station A to Station E, passing through stations B, C, and D, in that order, with a seating capacity of 200. A ticket may be booked from any station to any other station ahead on the route, but not to any earlier station. A ticket from one station to another reserves one seat on every intermediate segment of the route. The occupancy factor for a segment is the total number of seats reserved in the segment as a percentage of the seating capacity. The following is known: (i) segment C-D had an occupancy factor of 95%, and only segment B-C had a higher occupancy factor; (ii) exactly 40 tickets were booked from B to C and 30 tickets were booked from B to E; (iii) among the seats reserved on segment D-E, exactly four-sevenths were from stations before C; (iv) the number of tickets booked from A to C was equal to that booked from A to E, and it was higher than that from B to E; (v) no tickets were booked from A to B, from B to D and from D to E; (vi) the number of tickets booked for any segment was a multiple of 10.

CAT 2025, International trade and tariffs. Five countries engage in trade with each other, each levying import tariffs on the others. The tariff (in USD) charged by a country on imports from another equals the tariff percentage × total imports from that country. A radar chart (not reproduced) shows the tariff percentages charged by each country on the others; a bar chart (not reproduced) shows the import tariffs levied by each country in billions USD. For example, the US charges 20%, 40%, 30%, and 30% on imports from France, India, Japan, and the UK respectively, and charged 3 billion USD on imports from the UK. Assume that imports from one country to another equal the exports from the latter to the former. The trade surplus of Country X with Country Y = exports from X to Y − imports to X from Y.

Note: this set depends on a radar chart and a bar chart that cannot be reproduced as data; the verbatim questions and official answers are below.

CAT 2025, Pollution Index. The two most populous cities and the non-urban region (NUR) of each of three states, Whimshire, Fogglia, and Humbleset, are assigned Pollution Measures (PMs). These nine PMs are all distinct multiples of 10, ranging from 10 to 90. The six cities in increasing order of their PMs are: Blusterburg, Noodleton, Splutterville, Quackford, Mumpypore, Zingaloo. The Pollution Index (PI) of a state is a weighted average of the PMs of its NUR and cities, with a weight of 50% for the NUR and 25% each for its two cities. There is only one pair of an NUR and a city (considering all cities and all NURs) where the PM of the NUR is greater than that of the city, and that NUR and the city both belong to Humbleset. The PIs of all three states are distinct integers, with Humbleset and Fogglia having the highest and the lowest PI respectively.

CAT 2025, Sustainability Index. Six countries (A-F) are tracked for their Sustainability Index (SI), an integer between 1 and 100, in the years 2016, 2020, and 2024. A scatter plot (not reproduced) shows the percentage increase in SI from 2016 to 2020 (X-axis) versus the percentage increase from 2020 to 2024 (Y-axis). It is known that in 2016 the SI ranks were B 1st, C 2nd, E 3rd, A 4th; F had the lowest SI in all three years; E had an SI of 90 in 2024 (the only country to do so); and the range of SI values was 60 in both 2016 and 2024.

Note: this set relies on a scatter plot that cannot be reproduced as data; the verbatim questions and official answers are below.

CAT 2025, Mobile operators. Six friends, Anu, Bijay, Chetan, Deepak, Eshan, and Faruq, have mobile numbers from one of two operators, Xitel or Yocel. A table (not reproduced) gives the outgoing and incoming call durations grouped by operator. The duration of the call from Faruq to Eshan was 200 minutes. Several call restrictions apply (for example, Bijay did not call Eshan, and Chetan did not call Anu or Deepak).

Note: this set depends on a data table that cannot be reproduced here; the verbatim questions and official answers are below.

CAT 2025, Puzzle competition. Anirbid, Chandranath, Koushik, and Suranjan participated in a puzzle-solving competition. The competition comprised 10 puzzles that had to be solved in the same sequence, i.e., a competitor got access to a puzzle as soon as they solved the previous puzzle. Some of the puzzles were visual puzzles and the others were number-based puzzles. The winner of the competition was the one who solved all puzzles in the least time. Two charts (not reproduced) describe their progress: the chart on the left shows the number of puzzles solved by each competitor at a given time (in minutes) after the start, and the chart on the right shows the number of visual puzzles solved by each competitor at a given time.

Note: this set depends on two progress charts that cannot be reproduced as data; the verbatim questions and official answers are below.

CAT 2025, International trade (P, X, C). Three countries, Pumpland (P), Xiland (X), and Cheeseland (C), trade with each other and with the Rest of World (ROW). The normalized trade balances are P = 0%, X = 10%, and C = −20%. A set of constraints (not reproduced in full) give the export percentages and volumes to specific partners, with all values measured in units of "IC".

Note: this set depends on charts/constraints that cannot be reproduced as data; the verbatim questions and official answers are below.