Data Utilization, Systems Thinking, and Logical Thinking
Core concepts
This domain tests how you reason with data and about systems. For data utilization, understand the difference between data, information, and knowledge; qualitative vs quantitative data; and basic descriptive statistics: mean, median, mode, and range. Know why the median resists outliers and when each measure is appropriate. Grasp correlation vs causation-two variables moving together does not prove one causes the other.
Systems thinking: recognize that a system is a set of interrelated parts with inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback. Understand that optimizing one part can worsen the whole (suboptimization) and that feedback loops drive behavior.
Logical thinking (computational thinking): decompose problems, find patterns, abstract away detail, and design step-by-step algorithms. Understand AND/OR/NOT logic, truth tables, and simple flowcharts (sequence, selection, iteration).
Traps
Averages hide distribution shape-a high mean may be pulled by one outlier. Confusing correlation with causation is a frequent distractor. In logic questions, "A or B" is inclusive unless stated otherwise.
Worked example
Salaries 30, 32, 33, 35, 300 (thousand). Mean = 86, but median = 33. The median better represents a typical salary because the outlier inflates the mean.
Rule of thumb
When data has outliers, prefer the median; when reasoning about cause, demand evidence beyond correlation.