Start here · the first lesson of Paragraph data caselet
Paragraph data caselet
DI: Caselets · for IPMAT Indore, IPMAT Rohtak and JIPMAT
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The idea
A caselet is a data set written as a paragraph instead of a table. Behind the sentences there is a small grid (companies x products, months x items, campuses x boys/girls). Once you fill that grid, every question is a one-line calculation: a ratio, a percentage change, an average or a difference. The skill being tested is converting the text into the table without slips. The arithmetic itself is easy.
Textbook vs exam method
Textbook method
- Read the first lines to find the grid: what the rows are, what the columns are, and any totals.
- Draw the empty grid with a total row and a total column.
- Go through the clues in order. Write each one as an equation in the cells ("PNBE April = 1.25 x NDLS March").
- Solve the cells that are directly given, then the ones that depend on them, and fill the remainders from the totals.
- Check: the rows and columns must add to the given totals, and every count must be a whole number.
- Answer each question from the grid.
Exam method
- Grid first, questions later. Fill the whole grid once. It costs a minute and saves re-reading for every question.
- Anchor clue. Find the clue with a plain number (for example "128 girls in East, 40% of all girls"). It usually gives a total: 320 girls, 800 students.
- One unknown. If no anchor exists, let x be the cell that most clues refer to (here, PNBE in May) and write the others as a*x + b. Questions that add "if... = 42500" just fix x.
- Remainders last. The cell that "takes the rest" (Goa's female athletes, Assam's male athletes) is total minus the others. It is also your check.
- Read the base. For "what percent more/less than" questions, underline the word after "than": that quantity is the base.