How to crack the DI-LR section of the CAT – I

How to crack the DI-LR section of the CAT – I: Just like I keep getting queries on how to increase RC accuracy, despite the Masterclasses and the Last Mile To CAT sessions, I keep getting queries around the DI-LR section as well.
In this series of series of posts  I’ll dive really deep down into actual How to crack the DI-LR section of the CAT – I and see if I can come up with some kernel of truth beyond just the solving of the set that can help aspirants approach the solving of the sets better.

I am not going to take up the selection of the sets in these set of posts — I have already done that in these previous posts, here and here. So if you do not know the process to select you should first look at these posts.
I am going to solely focus on solving these sets cleanly bringing out the reason why these sets seem tougher than usual
highlighting the skills or the logical reasoning chops you need to strengthen and the ways to do the same

The Pizza Set

Funky Pizzeria was required to supply pizzas to three different parties. The total number of pizzas it had to deliver was 800, 70% of which were to be delivered to Party 3 and the rest equally divided between

Party 1 and Party 2.

Pizzas could be of Thin Crust (T) or Deep Dish (D) variety and come in either Normal Cheese (NC) or Extra Cheese (EC) versions. Hence, there are four types of pizzas: T-NC, T-EC, D-NC, and D-EC. Partial information about proportions of T and NC pizzas ordered by the three parties is given below:

Thin Crust (T)
Normal Cheese (NC)

Party 1
.6

Party 2
.55
.3

Party 3

.65

Total
.375
.52

1. How many Thin Crust pizzas were to be delivered to Party 3?

– 398
– 162
– 196
– 364

2. How many Normal Cheese pizzas were required to be delivered to Party 1?

– 104
– 84
– 16
– 196

3. For Party 2 if 50% of the Normal Cheese pizzas were of Thin Crust variety, what was the difference between the numbers of T-EC and D-EC pizzas to be delivered to Party 2?

– 18
– 12
– 30
– 24

4. Suppose that a T-NC pizza cost as much as a D-NC pizza, but 3/5th of the price of a D-EC pizza. A D-EC pizza costs Rs. 50 more than a T-EC pizza and the latter costs Rs. 500. If 25% of the Normal Cheese pizzas delivered to Party 1 were of Deep Dish variety, what was the total bill for Party 1?

– Rs. 59480
– Rs. 59840
– Rs. 42520
– Rs. 45240

How to process the information

As I read the set I can see that they have given how many pizzas were delivered to each of the three parties — so I know the totals of the rows.
I can also calculate the totals of the columns — the number of TC and number of NC.
Only two cells are missing and at this point and they can be calculated in a trice. It is important to look at the questions at this point — once the understanding of the set is done.
The first two questions are asking for the two missing values.
Also, the moment I look at the values — .375 and 800 — I know that the calculation is easy. If you do not see this then before you ask anyone else how to improve your DI-LR scores, you need to fix this — your number crunching skills.
So you know that you can pocket 6 marks in about 6 minutes easily. So I would rate this set an 8 out of 10.
To take you through the process of solving this set, I decided to record a video of the solving so that you can see how to use the paper effectively to solve cleanly and also get a fair idea of how the numbers should be broken down during calculation.