CAT 2011: Top experts answer FAQs on VA & LR

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
March 22, 2014
Now that there is less 24 days left for CAT 2011, you have reached the last leg of your preparation. It is time for you to review your preparation and brush up those topics which you are not confident in.

The experts who have answered the queries are Arun Sharma, CAT guru & author of best selling CAT preparation books; Vinayak Kudva, Product Head, IMS Learning; Gejo Sreenivasan, Principal Consultant, Career Launcher; Nishit Sinha, CAT expert & author of CAT preparation books and Abhishek Gupta, Senior Manager, Academics, Career Launcher.

Q: I have a problem in comprehension section of Verbal Ability. Kindly give the tips regarding this.

Arun Sharma: Improve your ability to understand longer sentences from unfamiliar topics. If you can understand sentences, you can understand paragraphs and if you can understand paragraphs you can understand passages. So improve your sentence comprehension ability- that is the key skill to focus on.

Q: What should be the strategy in attempting LR questions? If I am not strong enough in English, do I really need to worry about the same?

Arun Sharma: If your English is not strong LR becomes your key strategic point to crack the section. LR can take you half way to qualifying the section in my estimate.

Q: As per the new updated CAT format, what kind of questions can we expect from Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning section?

Vinayak Kudva: Question types remain the same. So you'll have questions similar to what was there in earlier CATs ... Just that grouping of questions has changed. Verbal ability will mostly include RC, Critical Reasoning, Grammar and Vocabulary. Logical reasoning will include analytical reasoning and logical puzzles. So the question types remain the same

Q: What exactly is Critical Reasoning like? How is it different from Logical Reasoning?

Vinayak Kudva. Critical reasoning is more on Verbal Reasoning, usually having questions on conclusions, assumptions, arguments etc. while logical reasoning is more like puzzle based questions

Q: Will there be equal weightage for both LR and VA or VA will be given more weightage?

Vinayak Kudva. VA is likely to have more questions than LR. However, this doesn't mean that LR is not important as doing well in both question types might increase your chances of clearing he cut offs

Q: Verbal Ability is my weak area. Please give me some tips on increasing my mock scores which will give me good scores in CAT eventually.

Gejo Sreenivasan: Verbal Ability is an area which can be improved by reading. Read the lead articles in the editorial page of Hindu. That will help you a lot in understanding RC passages and taking up para jumbles and para completion questions.

Q: How do I prepare for the vocabulary section, if I have to start from scratch?

Gejo Sreenivasan: Right now you don't have much time to prepare for vocabulary. I would say, you can keep some flash cards (words and their meanings) with you and keep referring to them while you are in a bus or car or whenever you get some free time. Other than that you can read the lead articles that appear on the editorial pages of Hindu or Deccan Herald and get hold of some new words every day.

Q: I'm weak in Verbal Ability. My mock test results are very poor. Please suggest ways to improve the section.

Nishit Sinha: Verbal Ability is mostly skill based - developed over a period of time. You can still gain a good control over reasoning based Verbal Ability questions - FIJ, Critical Reasoning, and Para Jumbles. Go through idioms and phrases or confusing words handout. 

Q: Sir my English knowledge is good but somehow I can't score well in VA. There are many questions which I mark wrong. What should I do to enhance my score?

Abhishek Gupta: Try and find out what's going wrong with the answers if you think your language skills are okay. Analyze the wrong answers, and don't repeat the same mistakes again. I don't see a reason for you to do poorly every time despite having good language skills.
To read the previous MBAUniverse.com article on QA & DI FAQs, click on the following link: CAT 2011 QA & DI: Top experts answer FAQs

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