Data Insights Decoded: How to Cut Through Noise and Focus on What Matters

This guide will help you master the skill of selective reading, a crucial advantage for non-native English speakers who often run out of time on lengthy Data Insights questions. Instead of reading everything line by line, I will show you how to quickly locate relevant details and avoid common traps, enhancing your decision-making under time pressure. You’ll gain practical tools to scan smarter, solve faster, and stay focused on what the question is testing.

We’ll look at a verbal two-part analysis question and a quantitative multi-source reasoning question.

Two-Part Analysis – Verbal Variant

When to read everything vs. selectively choose what to read

A general rule of thumb for knowing what to read is the length of the given question/passage. If the question or passage is short (100 to 150 words) – you’ll probably end up reading everything, with the aim of focusing on the important details relevant to the question. However, if the question is long or presented in multiple tabs – you will not need to read everything for a particular question. Instead, you’ll learn to move across the information, strategizing where to search for the relevant information the question is asking for.

Let’s begin with a short passage:

Example: Rock varnish is typically rich in iron and manganese, with the presence of manganese able to be tracked on the surface of the rock. Because the bacteria involved survive on the surface of rocks in the colder, continuously frozen, reaches of Antarctica, scientists were not surprised to discover that the rock varnish in the Thiel Mountains area of Antarctica consists only of limonite, a form of oxidized iron. This had penetrated from the surface of the rocks into the cracks. However, although moisture is essential to the movement of limonite, snow has not melted in the Thiel Mountains in recent times.

Indicate which statement in the table the given information most strongly suggests is true, and the statement that the given information most strongly suggests is false. Make only one selection, one in each column.

	TRUE	FALSE
A			Moisture is required for the presence of significant amounts of manganese in the environment.
B			Moisture is not required for the presence of significant amounts of manganese in the environment.
C			When temperatures in a continuously frozen location increase to above freezing, cracks in rocks there begin to take in rock varnish containing significant amounts of manganese.
D			Rock varnish that is especially rich in iron is mostly found in extreme cold.
E			Manganese is unable to penetrate into cracks in significant amounts.
F			Temperatures on rocks in the Thiel Mountains were above freezing at some point in the past.

Start by reading the question first so you know what to look for in the passage above. An important note in your task is not to verify every statement, but just to identify one that is supported by the passage and one that contradicts the passage. With these two points in mind, you’ll read the passage with purpose: looking for specific claims (conclusions) and cause-effect logic that you can match or reject. Thus, your approach here is one of targeted reading. For non-native English speakers, if you find yourself overwhelmed by the passage, once you find a claim, transition keyword, or cause-effect relationship, you could scan the choices straight away so that you don’t have to carry a lot of information before analyzing the choices.

Things to slow down on and check your answer choices for:

• Conclusion statements
• Cause – Effect
• Transition Keywords

Let’s try that.

Sentence 1: “Rock varnish…” this is a definition. Since this is not a conclusion or a claim, nor a cause-effect statement, I’ll just put the information in my memory bank.

Sentence 2: “Because…, scientists…” This is a cause-effect relationship. It’s a good time to go through the choices to see if any is supported or contradicted by this sentence.

• You will see that Choice C is False, where C says “…rock varnish containing significant amounts of manganese.” This contradicts the ‘effect,’ “scientists were not surprised to discover that the rock varnish in the Thiel Mountains area of Antarctica consists only of limonite.” Choose C for the FALSE column.

  Sentence 3: Similar to sentence 1, sentence 3 is a statement. Keep it in your memory bank. Go on to the next sentence.

  Sentence 4: “However, although…” This sentence has both a transition keyword “however” and a cause-effect structure “although…, snow …”

• Let’s check our choices to see if we can find a match(don’t forget to keep Sentence 1 and 3 in mind, just in case!).
• Choice F is TRUE because it can be inferred from Sentence 4 that if “…snow has not melted in the Thiel Mountains in recent times,” then it had melted sometime earlier, matching with what Choice F says about temperature being above freezing (i.e., warmer than freezing). Choose F for the TRUE column.

Multi-Source Reasoning – Quantitative Variant

In this next multi-source reasoning question format, you’ll see two labelled tabs — for example, “Current Flights” and “New Flight Lines.” Only one tab is visible at a time, and the active tab will be highlighted in yellow. Click the tab headers to toggle between sources of information as you answer the questions.

When you first see a multi-source reasoning question (many tabs), don’t read everything line-by-line, unless you’re looking for specific information. Instead, understand what each tab is about: read the tab’s title and first sentence of the paragraph. Scan each diagram, table, or graph to know what variables are being presented.

Example: For the following proposed new flight line, select Yes if, based on the information provided, implementing the line would increase the total annual revenue generated by all SkySoarer flight lines by more than $10 million. Otherwise, select No.

YES	NO
		Line AD

Step 1: From the question’s wording, identify where to begin.

“…implementing the line would increase the total annual revenue...”

This tells you to start in the New Flight Lines tab. You're being asked to calculate the net effect of adding a proposed line and that data lives in Tab 2.

From this tab, identify:

• The cities the proposed new flight line connects
• The projected revenue from this new line
• Most importantly, remember the 10% penalty rule

Step 2: Switch to the Current Flights Tab (Tab 1) and Apply the 10% Rule

Now that you know the termini for Line AD (Abron and Dewark), you’ll need to identify which existing flight routes involve either city.

From Tab 1, locate these routes:

• Abron–Bionia: $33.1M
• Abron–Cordell: $18.7M
• Bionia–Dewark: $18.1M

Why these? Because they share a terminus with the proposed line (either Abron or Dewark), and they’re already in service, so they’re subject to the 10% penalty.

Next, compute the total affected revenue and apply the 10% penalty:

Routes involving Abron (A):

$33.1M + $18.7M = $51.8M

10% of $51.8M = $5.18M

Routes involving Dewark (D):

$18.1M

10% of $18.1M = $1.81M

Total projected revenue loss = $5.18M + $1.81M = $6.99M

Step 3: Apply the Net Revenue Formula

From Tab 2:

• Projected revenue from Line AD = $20.1M

Final calculation:

$20.1M -  $6.99M = $13.11M net gain

Since $13.11 > $10M, the condition is satisfied.

Answer: select YES.

Navigating with Purpose

On information-dense Data Insights questions, the challenge isn’t the math, instead it is knowing where to look first and what to ignore. Start by scanning the tabs, titles, and variables to get a baseline understanding. This quick mental map builds your mental familiarity and will help you read the question with direction, instead of confusion. This sequence of anchoring, extracting, and applying will help you move with precision and avoid the trap of being lost with irrelevant information.

Once you’ve built the habit of strategic scanning and targeted reading, the rest is refinement. You’ll be able to navigate layered wording and diagrams to efficiently target the most relevant information and apply it with precision. Even partial mastery of these skills can lead to a strong performance. On the Data Insights section, strong results are well within reach, even if you don’t get every question right.

Written by April Thanarat, Director of MBA KEY. She has over 20 years of experience teaching GMAT and counseling MBA candidates. Her passion and expertise have made her the most sought-after GMAT instructor in Thailand. As Director of MBA KEY, April leverages her diverse, international background to help students build and achieve their academic and professional goals.