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Professional · Civil Service Exam

Data interpretation

A table or chart is given and the questions ask you to read it, compare parts of it, or compute from it.

Read the headings and the units before the numbers. A surprising share of lost marks on these items come from answering with a total when the question asked for a share, or reading a row as a column.

Most questions need only two or three cells. Find them, ignore the rest, and resist recomputing the whole table.

Where a question asks which category is largest or smallest, check whether it means in absolute terms or as a proportion. Those are different answers and both will be on the list.

Worked examples

Try these, then read why.

Written for this platform and generated from the same bank the practice sets draw on. Every wrong option is explained, because knowing why a distractor was tempting is most of the learning.

The table shows the number of digitised records by office. What is the total number of digitised records for Region I across all periods shown?

Office              Q1        Q2        Q3
Region I            78        38       452
Region IV           74        32       406
Region VII         206       246       296
Region XI          407       205       333
  1. A1020
  2. B568 (correct)
  3. C374
  4. D1487

Find the row and the column the question names before doing any arithmetic. Add across the Region I row: 78 + 38 + 452 = 568. Most errors here are correct arithmetic on the wrong cells, so locate them first.

  • A This includes a value the question does not ask for.
  • C This uses only two cells where the question asks about more.
  • D This totals the other direction of the table.

Practise this properly.

Three examples show you the format. Finding out whether data interpretation is actually costing you marks takes a measured set, which is what the free diagnostic is for.

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