CAT 2015: More weightage on Verbal needs planned preparation; make a balancing act between sections

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
July 16, 2015
Time to award equal weightage to all the questions and sections in CAT 2015 is going to be over as CAT 2015 Centre is going to rationalise the weights assigned to different components
This year we intend to address it by making some changes in the test content and also by rationalizing weights assigned to different components of the test Prof Tathagata Bandyopadhyay, CAT 2015 Convener and faculty at IIM Ahmedabad

Time to award equal weightage to all the questions and sections in CAT 2015 is going to be over as CAT 2015 Centre is going to rationalise the weights assigned to different components of the test to remove skewness in the selection process towards a particular set of candidates. Sharing about the proposed change in CAT 2015 exam pattern Prof Tathagata Bandyopadhyay, CAT 2015 Convener and faculty at IIM Ahmedabad  says “Regarding the content part, one of our concerns is, score in Quant dominates the percentile rank in CAT. As a consequence it brings in skewness to the selection process towards a particular set of candidates from a particular background. This year we intend to address it by making some changes in the test content and also by rationalizing weights assigned to different components of the test.

The message is clear to understand that those strong in Quant but not so strong in Verbal shall have to focus on 34 questions of Verbal Ability also and will need to plan their preparation accordingly. Besides the  weightage to sub divisions in Verbal Ability in CAT 2015 is also expected to be different. According to Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability preparation candidates should frame their preparation strategy according to weightage on various segments in Verbal Ability section and devote more time on such topics that constitute more number of questions and common type of question.

In fact CAT 2015 aims to create a level playing field for all candidates irrespective of their educational background and will throw surprises deviating from earlier exam pattern to remove the quant dominating skewness due to which academic diversity in IIM class rooms is adversely affected.

CAT 2015: Proposed change in Weightage
The weightage on different sections in CAT 2015 is proposed to be changed by limiting the weightage on Quant section. It may result in reduction of  number of questions in Quant section; more number of questions on  Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension and/or introducing new type of questions. However it is for certain that questions in sections other than quant will have prominence in CAT 2015.

With more weightage to Verbal Ability section and proposed increased number of questions it is expected that time to solve CAT 2015 question paper may go up by 10 minutes and number of questions may also go up.

Present and Proposed weightage in CAT 2015
Present and proposed weightage to various questions in Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning section as envisaged would be somewhat as given in the following table (based on the trend since CAT 2014)

Question segment                             Weightage to VARC     component Present                                                                           
                   
Sentence correction                                        12-15%                      20%

FIJ questions                                                    8-10%                     6%

Para summary                                                  8-10%                     7%

Grammar/phrases/Fill in the blanks                      0%                        6%

Correct usage/Vocabulary                                   0%                         6%

Para jumbles/Out of context sentence                 6-8%                      15%

Reading comprehension*                                    45%                       40%

(*CAT-2014 had 16 questions on RC out of 50 in VALR section and out of 34 on VARC component. With more number of questions expected on VARC even the same number of questions would have reduced weigthage)

Based on MBAUniverse.com expert analysis

What you should expect in CAT 2015 VARC …
Verbal Ability and Reading comprehension taken together had 34 questions in CAT 2014. This number may go up to 38-40 in CAT 2015 with questions framed on a few more topics.  The division could be as referred above. None of the candidates solve all the questions fearing imposition of penalty marks. As such a candidate armed with the accurate solution of 28-32 questions get 99+ percentile in this section

What you should prepare to ace CAT 2015 VARC…
Error correction in paragraphs and sentences- Error correction in sentences is proposed to form an important part of Verbal Ability section in CAT 2015. If you can’t write a well worded grammatically correct sentence, how can you expect to communicate well in your managerial position in an organization?

CAT 2015 proposes to ask 6-8 questions with a Weightage of 18-24 marks to the error correction questions. Error correction could be in correct usage of Grammar, punctuation, spelling,Tenses, compound or specific words. These areas are considered as the foundation on which the entire building of English language stands.

FIJ: Statement based questions
You may expect 2-3 statement based questions in Verbal Ability section in CAT 2015 to identify them whether they are  Fact, Inference or Judgment. These questions are more related to Critical reasoning. Question is based on 4 sequentially ordered statements. Each statement can be classified as Fact, Inference or Judgment. The question is followed by 4 options and the most appropriate option that describes the sequence of these statements is to be picked out.

Begin preparing para summary
There are expected 3-4 questions in Verbal Ability section of CAT 2015 on summarising the paragraphs. The question is based on a small paragraph. CAT 2015 aspirant will be supposed to go through the paragraph, form the summary of the text and pick out the most appropriate option that best describes the summary of the paragraph.

To prepare for such questions, a candidate should develop good reading habit, should practice writing summary of a paragraph on regular basis. Answering such question may not be difficult then.

Correct Vocabulary Usage- Understanding the usage of vocabulary is very important. It is an important part of Verbal Ability section in CAT.  Correct Vocabulary usage can only empower you to communicate well in your managerial position. Despite the close synonyms – every word has specific usage – one cannot write ‘Pretty Boy’  or ‘Handsome woman’  -although pretty and handsome are the synonyms.

Although vocabulary based questions remained missing in CAT 2014, they may re-surface again may be in a different form. Earlier CAT exams used to have 4-5 questions on vocabulary usage, for example 1-2 questions marked  there on similar sounding/confused words; 2 questions appeared to pick out the incorrect use of common words/phrasal verb; 1-2 questions were asked to fill in the blanks with most appropriate pair of  words.

CAT is famous for throwing surprise element in actual test, so do not stop preparing the contextual use of vocabulary words.

Questions based on RC passages
Reading comprehension will play the most important role in Verbal Ability section. The 16 RC questions out of 36 questions on Verbal Ability in second section constitute roughly 45% share which will be a major part to push the percentile up in CAT 2015 exam.

CAT 2015 is expected to have 4 Reading Comprehension passages of 800-900 words length. Each passage is expected to be followed by 4 questions. Earlier CAT used to have 3 passages with 10 questions in all. Apart from this 2 passages were comparatively shorter followed by 3 questions each while one passage was longer with 4 questions.

The type of questions which are supposed to follow RC passages could be based on their contents, phrases used in the passages and could be little indirect ones.  Besides there could be questions on True/False statements related to RC passages. Earlier CAT exam used to have few common questions on all the RC passages like ‘Tone of the author’; ‘Main idea of the passage’; ‘Purpose of passage’ it appears all such common questions may go missing. Tone of the author might be replaced with ‘Attitude’ of the author.

Jumbled paragraphs in CAT 2015
You can expect 2-3 questions on random jumbled sentences and 2-3 questions on ‘Out of context’ sentence to be picked out of jumbled sentences. The total weightage will be around 10 to 15% in Verbal Ability section in CAT 2015.

While the random jumbled sentences are to be placed in coherent order, the other type would ask you to pick the ‘Out of context sentence’ from a jumbled paragraph.

The strategy to prepare for Para Jumble is to understand the connectors and pronouns used in the sentences. At some places, pronoun is used in place of noun. Find out the noun. The pronoun in the para is used in place of noun, therefore the sentence with the pronoun will come after the sentence where the relevant noun has been used. It will require more and more practice to gain expertise in solving them.

Which part requires more attention; Preparation Strategy
All the parts of Verbal Ability section are interlinked and need devoted study pattern. With a view to form the preparation strategy for CAT 2015 you should devote your time as follows

RC- This part can be well prepared if you have good reading skills and your vocabulary is also well stocked.  So to prepare for this read more, find out the meaning and references of the vocabulary words and next day find out how much you have improved. Attempting the mocks is a good idea but should not be opted in the beginning. It might require more than half an hour a day initially.

Jumbled sentences- It is a pure practice based module. Crack more cross word puzzles, exercises on jumbled paragraphs to gain expertise. Devote 20 minutes every day

Vocabulary- How much you can learn and how much you can use the words in context depends upon you. There is no shortage of material but your learning should be followed by regular practice. Questions on usage of common words and phrasal verbs may also be placed in CAT 2015. Hence the best is to use regularly whatever you have learnt.

Error correction- Strong fundamental building is definitely required. Without this even the other parts might ditch you and you may not be able to understand the tricky use of grammar and tenses in RC, parajumbles, FIJs and while summarising the paragraphs making the entire preparation futile.  It will be better to devote around 20-30 minutes to build your fundamentals beginning with grammar.

Another important component is to practice more and more exercises to bring a good level of confidence, speed, and accuracy.

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