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How I increased my Calculation Speed for DILR?
Updated: Nov 16, 2020
In the previous post on DILR tips, I had mentioned that it was my favourite section among the three. But, I suffered a great deal from my slow calculation speed, especially in DI. Using the calculator on-screen was not the most effective method. So, I used a couple of resources to improve my calculation speed:
In this post, I am sharing some online resources for you to increase your calculation speed for DILR. It includes a list of websites that I used and some more that I recently came across and found to be useful:
Math Trainer - You are definitely going to love this resource. It is a simple website with 100 levels of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. After answering a couple of questions in each level, you either get to qualify for the next level or not depending on how fast you solve them. It is very easy to solve the questions of the initial few levels. But, as you progress, it gets hard. Make sure to not use a calculator and only use the mental mathematics techniques to solve them.
Vedic Math - I used to watch a lot of YouTube videos on vedic math to learn tricks to solve quicker. This is one such video which summarizes about 100 vedic math tricks. You need not watch the entire video at one go. Watch about 10 tricks a day, take notes and then practice them the following the day. With a gap of one day for practice, you'll be able to retain these 100 techniques in 20 days.
Mind Games - This is an app that has a beautiful set of games that help you sharpen your mind, memory and calculation speed. My father and I used to compete on our score in these games during the course of my CAT preparation. I strongly recommend you to use this app on a daily basis.
Golden Book - This is just a name I gave to my notebook in which I noted down the following and revised them all on weekends to keep some numbers on my tips: Tables till 20, Squares from 1 to 30, Cubes from 1 to 20, Fractions and their Decimal Notations, Factorials till 10, Powers of 2, 3 and 5 till 7th power, Square roots till 10, etc.
Rank Your Brain - This website is similar to the Math Trainer. The only difference is that you can select a level for this particular exercise. By choosing a level, you need not wait till you reach the advanced level to train your mind more. You can use this website alongside the Math Trainer when you feel your level has improved up to a certain point.
These websites will be enough for you to learn more about fast calculation tricks. But, I have two points to share with you based on my experience with DILR which will ensure that these tricks work for you:
Create a Repository - If you don't note these tricks down, they won't get registered in your mind. I found a way around this situation. I not only noted them down in my notebook, I also used to share them with the people around me. I created a space called Trickonomics on Quora for the same. I wish I had continued sharing tricks there, but you can create such a space for yourself.
Applying the Tricks - Just revising them on weekends is not going to help unless you apply them while solving the DILR questions. Hence, my second suggestion to you would be to stop timing your DILR sets. Instead, take your time and apply these techniques so that it becomes normal for you to use them.
I'm sure that with constant practice, you'll be able to increase your calculation speed. This is something that you can't notice happening. Your improved mock scores will speak for themselves.
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