LR Questions on Arrangements in CAT 2014: How to prepare and crack

CAT 2014 aspirants during the next 100 days will be preparing hard with one thing in common on their mind that they are aspiring for the best available opportunity to pursue MBA from the B school one amongst the top rated ones.

To pursue the goal of scoring a high percentile in CAT 2014, the small but important section of Logical Reasoning carrying 10-11 questions clubbed to Verbal Ability will play an important role in CAT 2014 with a percentile weightage upto 70. If you are focused on various types of LR questions and can crack them, success in CAT 2014 will no longer be a dream.

According to Prof S K Agarwal candidates should expect more number of questions on LR in CAT 2014 with the change of guard as TCS has replaced Prometric. LR questions on Arrangements are framed to test the ability of the aspirant in arranging alternate shapes in accordance with the given information/data. The serious preparation with more practice is the key to remember throughout the preparation journey to get into one of the desired B-schools. Questions based on different types of arrangements call for specific skill to form various geometrical shapes e.g. triangular, rectangular, straight line, square etc. An aspirant shall be required to arrange the material objects, people, animals or abstract ones in any of the above referred or other shape.

Follow the Important Guidelines

CAT aspirants should solve LR questions based on Arrangements keeping in mind the following points
1. Read the question attentively and carefully. Do not skip even a single word
2. Imagine the situation and try to form a shape to incorporate the given information
3. The information given in the question must be thoroughly understood and no assumptions other than the provided facts or information should be made
4. Get the direct and indirect clues that could be used to quickly arrive at the correct answer option
5. The words like Whether, if, unless, always, usually, only, all, few, some,other than, none etc. must be understood in their correct context, as they play a key role in arriving at the answer.
6. Conclusion will either definitely follow the given information and so will be a valid conclusion or it wiil not definitely follow the information and so will be invalid conclusion. It must be remembered.
7. Check the answer options on the basis of the drawn figure and if it matches your answer, you are right, if not, go for elimination method.

Example question (CAT-2008)
Study the information below and answer questions based on it.
(i) There are three houses on each side of the road. (ii) These six houses are labeled as P, Q, R, S, T and U. (iii) The houses are of different colours, namely, Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Yellow and White. (iv) The houses are of different heights. (v) T, the tallest house, is exactly opposite to the Red coloured house. (vi) The shortest house is exactly opposite to the Green coloured house. (vii) U, the Orange coloured house, is located between P and S. (viii) R, the Yellow coloured house, is exactly opposite to P. (ix) Q, the Green coloured house, is exactly opposite to U. (x) P, the White coloured house, is taller than R, but shorter than S and Q.
Question 1: What is the colour of the house diagonally opposite to the Yellow coloured house? (1) White (2) Blue (3) Green (4) Red (5) none of these
Question 2: Which is the second tallest house? (1) P (2) S (3) Q (4) R (5) cannot be determined
Question 3: What is the colour of the tallest house? (1) Red (2) Blue (3) Green (4) Yellow (5) none of these

How to analyse the given information
According to the given statements following information is available and can be drawn as follows
P-S U S-P; now you have road in between, so, across the road R-T Q T-R
Since the statements VII to IX clarify - P U(Orange)
R(Yellow) Q (Green), Or, much better will be to form a table on the basis of the given information-

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