Cracking Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension ( VARC) is not everyone’s cup of tea. Especially if you’ve been the traditional engineering student who has favoured ‘numbers’ over everything else.
Mentor and CAT coach Pranav Pant has a few easy cues to share when preparing for VARC. Read along, they may just help you glide through the section.
1) List down all the genres that you are comfortable with: It asks 4-5 passages in the examination. Candidates should know that what things they are comfortable reading. There are various genres in the examination such as passages on philosophy, science, world history or finance, or anything. Try to solve the RC’s first.
2) Skim through the passages: When you encounter the RC’s, skim through the passages and see your interest, how familiar you are with the topic, the language, the vocabulary used based on these points candidate should decide to attempt the passage. It will just take a minute to skim. Make sure you choose the right passage as passages take time and your options are going to be dependent on the passage.
3)Attempt easy questions: If you encounter any ‘fact questions’ or questions pertaining to any particular paragraph or related to any statement made by the author, attempt those questions as they may be easier to do. Inference-based or multiple option-based questions, the main theme of the passage may be attempted later as they take time.
4) Eliminating options to get close: In RC’s candidates are usually stuck between the options, so try to eliminate the options to get close to the options. Sometimes eliminations help the candidate reduce the chance of getting answers incorrect.
5) Don’t get stuck on a question: If the candidate gets stuck at a question after eliminating two of the options and is not sure about the other two options just leave that question. It is important to not attempt a question rather than attempting it and getting it wrong.
6) Don’t mark flukes in MCQs: For every correct answer candidate gets 3 marks, but for every incorrect candidate loses a mark. So, avoid making flukes.
7) Don’t leave non-MCQ’s: Para jumbles, odd sentences are non MCQ’s and they don’t have negative markings. So take an educational guess and attempt the question. Make sure you don’t leave the question. This could be bonus marks in the examination.
8) Don’t target any particular score: Each year the difficulty level as well as the paper is different so don’t be prejudiced that if I have to score above 95 percentiles, I need to attempt these many questions. The difficulty level will decide the score versus percentile. Go with an open mind and give your best in the examination.
All the best for CAT 2021
(Pranav Pant, an MBA from FMS, Delhi University who has cracked several exams such as CDS, SBI PO, RBI Grade B, UPSC Prelims and teaches Quantitative Aptitude, Data Interpretation, and Logical Reasoning is hosting FPJ-CAT Tips series exclusive for FPJ readers. A 99.96 percentiler in CAT, Pranav Pant is all geared to drive exam blues away)
