Date:20/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/20/stories/2006022003100500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Chart out a smooth path

T. Sreenivasa Prabhu

EducationPlus Tips to make charts dance to your tunes in Inter exam

FACE THEM: Battling with `pies and bars'. Photo:S Siva Saravanan

Having learned how to tackle the test of comprehension, let's now look at charts and note making.

The most likely charts you get will be the bar charts and the pie charts and the flow charts. If you understand the key to a bar chart, the pie chart will be just as perfectly clear as the apple pie and the flow chart flows along!

Just remember that a bar chart can have only two axes. It represents only two types of information, like years on one axis and relevant data on the other, nations on one and the data on the other etc. Terms to bear in mind are Maximum, Minimum, Average, Difference, Highest, Lowest etc.

1. The tallest bar/column for maximum

2. The shortest one for minimum

3. Average and the difference need only simple calculation you must have learnt at school.

A pie chart gives relatively more information with less effort. It looks just like an apple cut into pieces of different size, one for each of your family; the biggest chunk for your little sister, the next one for your younger brother and so on.

Regarding income, this chart shows what the largest portion is spent on and which need occupies the next place of importance. In cases like crops, spread of diseases etc also it remains largely the same and you get a legend that helps you read the graphical representation.

A flow chart does what it literally means. You know how a river flows from its source toward the sea through various terrains.

Take a note

Similarly, the process of solving a problem or making a product will have a beginning, a middle and an end. You may be asked to translate the given chart into verbal form or vice versa. Recollecting picture of the river can ease your task.

Note making is nothing but precis writing made easier!

The task of reducing the given passage to one third of its length, without changing its original meaning, all in you own words...don't you think it is a Herculean task to deal with the precis of your senior batches?

With note making you have almost nothing to do on your own. You are expected only to skim the passage, skip whatever you feel is unnecessary and write the main points of the passage in an order.

This test is of 5 marks and the following tips allow you snatch at least 4 of them.

1. Just as cool as with the comprehension passages, go through the given passage once.

2. The very first sentence in most cases contains the topic sentence that helps you approach the task with confidence

3. The same topic sentence can be reduced to two or three words making your title, which enables you to score a full 1 mark.

4. Try to pick as many key words as you can from each paragraph or part of the passage with the image scanning method you learned last week.

5. Note down the points that your key words describe, as grammatically as you can in an order with numbers (1,2,3...) or alphabets (a, b, c...)

6. Do not write any thing that is not suggested by the given passage!

7. Furnish your notes with sub titles if you can and your key words can serve this purpose.

See you next Monday and don't forget the importance of good food and proper rest during exams!