CAT 2013 is off to a good start. According to IIMs and Prometric, there was no glitch reported in any centre across the country. MBAUniverse.com was the first media to give you in-depth coverage of exam pattern and difficulty level. Our story headlined ‘CAT 2013 Day 1: Quant tricky and Tough, Verbal easy’ was published at 2.30PM on October 16. Now we present an in-depth analysis of the Verbal Ability section of CAT 2013, as per questions that appeared on Day 1, Slot 1. Reading this will prepare you better for your CAT 2013 paper.
Overall Analysis of Verbal Section:
The Verbal Ability questions were on Reading Comprehension, Para Jumble, Vocabulary, Error correction in paragraph, identifying the Out of Context sentences. According to MBAUniverse.com Verbal Ability expert Prof SK Agarwal, the paper was similar to last year’s pattern.
The Logical Reasoning questions were lengthy and tricky. One of the LR questions was similar to last year’s paper.
There were, although no surprise elements in the first session, there was repetition of last year’s surprises in parajumbles and Reading Comprehension passages.
Following topics were prominent in the Verbal section of the first session on first day-
Error Corrections
Verbal Ability section opened with a question on error correction in paragraph. There was question based on the understanding of core grammar. The question had a paragraph, split in four sentences. Candidates were required to pick out the sentences that were correct in terms of usage of grammar, spelling and punctuation, in terms of standard written English. Proper understanding of singular-plural, subject-verb agreement, usage of articles before comparatives and superlatives and the punctuation, were the key to crack this question. The direction in this type of question is very important. If the examination wants you to pick out the correct sentences and you pick out the incorrect ones, the loss is only due to the negligence and not because you didn’t know the answer. There were candidates who missed on this count. So one has to be careful before proceeding to opt for one of the appropriate answer option.
Reading Comprehension
There were three Reading Comprehension passage with 10 questions based on them. The passages didn’t have heavy literature words and could be understood well. One, out of the three passages was full of sarcasm and highlighted ‘the forgotten art of lying’. Those who like reading George Bernard Shaw and have read his book ‘The Apple Cart’ might have got the answers to all the questions very quickly. Questions were based on ‘Tone of the passage’; ‘Literal meaning of the phrase’; ‘Answer options that summarised the Main idea of the passage’. Another passage was on the ‘Adverse effects and controlling the methane Gas which is 70 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, in the arctic region ; the green house effects of this gas – its observation, measurement and control’. The passage was research based and quite informative. There were three questions based on this passage. Third passage was slightly lengthy and had four questions based on it. Based on ‘Ecofeminism’ the passage was critical of various activities going on and destroying Mother Nature. The questions asked the candidates to opt the right answer options on ‘Tone of the passage’; ‘main idea’; ‘phrase meaning’ and ‘what constituted to identify nature as female’. While two passages were relatively of 800-900 words, third passage had a length of more than 1000 words. The passages were full of rich vocabulary but not beyond the level of understanding. Although a little tricky but they were good to attempt. Those who had the close reading of passages could solve almost all of the questions.
Jumbled paragraph
Three paragraphs with jumbled sentences appeared in the examination. The surprise of CAT 2012 was repeated and one question to pick out the ‘Out of context sentence’ again found the place in parajumbles, though there was no fresh surprise. Two other questions on jumbled paragraphs were based on the random jumbled sentences, without any opening or concluding sentences given, beforehand. Candidates were asked to arrange the sentences so as to form a coherent paragraph. These parajumbles used the connecting words like ‘those’, ‘these’, ‘this’, ‘who’, ‘as’ – giving the clue to connect them with other sentences. Those who had a good amount of practice would crack them.
Vocabulary usage
There were four questions based on contextual vocabulary usage. Two of them required the candidates to fill in the blanks with the appropriate pair of words. The sentences were not very difficult but the answer options were very close. The words to be filled in were as simple as ‘merge’ and ‘occur’, however, the clarity of usage must be well understood before going to opt for the answer.
Other two questions were formed with one key word in each question which was used in four different ways in four sentences and the candidates were asked to pick out the incorrect usage. The words like ‘Stand’ and ‘Let’ are from common vocabulary of everyday usage. These words were used as compounds and in form of phrasal verbs or prepositional phrases. Usage of the word ‘stand’ and ‘let’, suffixed by the prepositions like- ‘in’, ‘by’, ‘down’, ‘against’, ‘off’, were made in the sentences and the incorrect use had to be spotted. The suggestion is to practice a few phrasal verbs along with other vocabulary words. The phrasal verbs are simple to use, so practice them a little more.
Last sentence of paragraph
Three such questions appeared in this section. Each question had a paragraph, the last sentence of which was deleted. Candidates had to find out the most appropriate answer options that would best place as the last sentence of paragraph. The trick was to opt for the sentence that should conclude the paragraph and should not take the thought to any further discussion. Those who have been practicing such questions didn’t take much time to crack it. There were words like ‘Besides’, ‘Apart from’, in answer options, these sentences would lead to next idea of discussion and hence, must not be opted as correct answer options. The candidates should concentrate on such sentences that would conclude the discussion instead of opening a domain of further discussion.
CAT 2013 in next few days
No major change in type and style of questions is expected in CAT 2013. Candidates, if work in the right direction will get a substantial improvement in their percentile.
Tips for the candidates
MBAUniverse.com published the most relevant articles, giving the clue to the CAT aspirants on surprising and anticipated elements. CAT aspirants, going to take the test in forthcoming days should go through the following –‘How to crack surprise questions in Verbal section for CAT 2013’ ; types and tricks to solve CAT questions in Logical Reasoning ; Error correction in paragraphs and sentences; Tips to solve 6 Vocabulary questions ; and How to score more in Reading Comprehension . They may prove to be of great help to the aspirants on preparation strategy during the next few days of their CAT examination.
CAT 2013 Day 1: LIVE Analysis and updates from both sessions of 16th October,2013
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