Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning of CAT – Tips and Techniques

Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning is the second section in CAT 2011. I would like to share some tips and facts about this section of CAT. These are purely my approaches which I employ in section 2 and this article is based on the different strategies I use. I hope that it would be useful to everyone.

SECTION 2 : (VERBAL ABILITY AND LOGICAL REASONING)

An easy way to score good in verbal part and clear the cut offs is to practice more Reading Comprehension passages. This is because you’ll get more questions on RC rather than any other sub section in Verbal Ability. In Verbal Ability, I give importance to the following sub sections in the given order.

1. Reading comprehension
2. Sentence correction
3. Para jumbles
4. Fill in the blanks
5. Para completion and Critical reasoning

1) Reading Comprehension

As I said, I will tell you the strategies used by me that I find useful.

The first step is to skim through the RC passage to get an idea about the field of the passage. It may be from philosophy, medicine, conversations, technology, etc. If I feel that the topic is completely new to me and difficult to interpret, I’ll skim the questions following the Reading Comprehension Passage. It makes it easier for me to find out the answers when I go back to the RC passage.

If you do not understand any passage, answer the factual answers (if there are any).

Inferential questions such as those that ask the central idea, style and tone of the passage should be answered when you completely understand the passage and it’s theme. If you try to attempt it without understanding the passage, you’ll most probably get it wrong.

You have to work out such techniques and see whether it suits you. And for doing that, you need to practice a lot. Do atleast 3-4 RCs a day and then compare your answers with the official answers and analyse why you have answered incorrectly. Analysing is the most important part. Only by doing a proper analysis can you improve upon your errors.

2) Sentence correction:

I believe that for questions on Sentence Correction, you will need to have a strong foundation with proper grammatical concepts. To crack any type of Sentence Correction, you need to learn the following:

1. Proper usage of verb (tense forms) according to the context.

2. Subject-verb agreement.

3. Spelling mistakes and confusing words.

4. Articles and prepositions.

5. Phrasal verbs and idiomatic usage.

6. Punctuation.

If someone feels that he/she is too weak in cracking Sentence Correction Questions, the reason may lie in the lack of fundamental knowlege of Grammar. So, the need is to work on grammar concepts and learn them.

3) Parajumbles:

For solving Parajumble questions, you need to practice a lot. While solving, try to find the links between the sentences. Thereby, eliminate the options which are too close.

The first step should be to guess the opening sentence. The opening sentence gives you a general idea about the passage. And then try to find out by the links as suggested by the options after eliminating the irrelavant ones. Be active on ParaJumble thread at pagalguy. This is the best source for finding ParaJumble questions.

4) Fill in the blanks:

You need a good vocabulary to crack difficult sets from this section. It cannot be improved much from now if you are preparing for CAT 2011. If you find a Fill in the blank question in which the words are totally new, just leave it. Guessing will mostly get you a wrong answer and fetch you negative marks in this sub section.

5) Para Completion and Critical reasoning:

These are a bit rare type of question these days. But indeed, you can expect 1-2 questions in CAT too. As they say, Expect the Unexpected. So, practice them through PG threads. There is a thread for GMAT critical reasoning discussions in PG.

It is the best one for CR. Both para completion and CR are modified forms of RCs. Once you get good hold in RCs, you’ll definitely be able to answer these type of questions too..

6) Logical reasoning:

I found testfunda books and TIME trishna book for DI and LR to be good on LR. And another best source is the past years’ original CAT papers and AIMCATs, CL mock CATS with explanations for the solutions. Practice is the key to LR. It is like playing a new game in lap/mobile. The more you get addicted to play, the more you’ll unlock the levels and become an expert.

I hope that everyone will be able to increase their score in the Verbal ability and Logical Reasoning section in a month’s time if they follow the aforesaid suggestions properly.