With two months to go now for CAT, the question on most of the students’ minds is how to improve their percentiles in all areas, especially in Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension section. There is also a lot of speculation in the minds of the students regarding the number of questions in this section. They should not worry about this as it will be the same for all. The types of questions are limited, unlike QA & DI-LR, which makes preparation relatively simpler.
Generally this section can be considered as having three parts – Verbal Ability & Reasoning (VA & R), Critical Reasoning (CR) and Reading Comprehension (RC).
The question types in VA & R are Para Formation Questions, Para Completion, Odd Man Out, Sentence Correction; Vocab based Questions, Para Summary, etc. Each question type in VA & R is governed by a set of specific rules. Have a list of these rules for each question type. Use it and every time you see that a rule is not working — analyse to identify what went wrong. This way you will learn something from every question you solve. They should practice without looking at the options, in fact for question types like PFQs, sentence correction, etc., they should never depend on the options as most of these type of question in the CAT are without options.
Regarding CR, the key skill to doing well is to read carefully into the meaning of the sentences – what is implied and what is not and an ability to reason — the assumptions, logic, conclusion, inferences etc. These are precisely the skills that students can build through thorough practice. While practicing the questions on critical reasoning, the students should understand the tone of the author and evaluate the options without one option affecting the other.
The student should focus on areas like psychology, philosophy, literature, etc. as they don’t generally prefer reading these topics. If students are not comfortable in any of the above topics, then they should read more on those topics.
Students should categorize the different types of questions they come across in different RCs at one place. (a) Big Picture — This question-type asks about the passage as a whole (b) Specific Questions — Details about the passage (c) Vocabulary Based Questions (d) Inference Based Questions (e) Assumptions Questions (f) Tone Questions (g) New Types — What follow up question would you ask the author?
This will help the students understand how to tackle the same Question type across different topics.
—Arvind Mantry, T.I.M.E. Chennai