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7/7/2014 7 Rules to Excel in CAT VA | GP Ka Funda

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7 Rules to Excel in CAT VA


Posted on June 21, 2014 by GP

Understanding of a Paper (or a section) along with the understanding of own strengths and weakness are the two essential
blocks of deciding the strategy for attempting it. To understand the section, let us look at the question types that appear in
English or the VA section of MBA entrance test and look at the skills required to answer them and also simultaneously look
at my comfort level with each of these question types.

R eading Compr ehens ion passages or what were called unseen passages in school are the nemesis of a large number
of students because of poor (or lack of) reading habit. The passages can be from different areas and the questions can be
factual or inferential. The good thing is that length of passage in Computer Based CAT has decreased as compared to its
paper & pencil version. It is advisable to attempt those passages first that are from a subject you are comfortable with. If you
are not good in Critical Reasoning, then it is okay to leave the inferential questions as it will help you cut down on the
negative score.

M y Comfor t Level: Throughout my school & college years and even today, I read a lot because of which I am by and large
comfortable with most kinds of RC passages. However, I do not find inferential, philosophical, literary, medical or biological
passages enjoyable and hence avoid them in the paper. I prefer factual passages and the RC passage topics that I prefer
attempting in the paper are business, economics, current affairs, politics, history and mythology.

Vocabular y ques tions , synonyms, antonyms & analogies, are k nowledge bas ed ques tions and can be answered
correctly only if you know the meaning of the word and/or the choices. Hence a good vocabulary is essential to well in these
types of question. The good thing about these questions is that they consume very little time a single reading of the
question and the choices is enough to determine if you can/cannot answer the question. Reading the question or the choices
again and again will not give you the answer. It is advis able to leave thes e ques tions if we do not get the ans wer
in a s ingle r eading.

M y Comfor t Level: I am fair ly ok ay with vocabular y and even with an approximate idea of the word; I am able to get
the correct answer by elimination of choices . However if I do not know the meaning of the word, Ill leave the question.

S entence Cor r ection, lik e vocabular y, is k nowledge bas ed. If you do not know the rule of grammar to be applied,
you are unlikely to get it correct and hence the question should be left un-attempted. However if you have good reading
habit, you should be able to get a 3 out of 5 questions correct by instinct/gut feel.

MORE IN ACADEMICS, MENTORSHIP, PREPARING FOR CAT


S entence Cor r ection and Vocabular y typically contr ibute to mos t to the ARTICLES)
negative s cor e of the s tudents
because of our propensity to mark an answer without being sure of the answer. Guesswork
7 Rules should be in
to Excel avoided in all
CAT QA
knowledge based questions. S ugges t that you r ead the ques tion once, if you k now the ans wer mar k it els e
move on to the nex t ques tion.

M y Comfor t Level: This is my weak area. I do not k now gr ammar however because of my reading habit many times I
am able to identify which part of the statement is incorrect. So simple questions of sentence correction will be attempted but
if the complex ity of the ques tion is high, I will leave the ques tion.

S entence completion (fill in the blank s ) ques tions are based on knowledge of vocabulary as well as grammar but
can be worked out based on the context and elimination of choices especially if the question has more than one blank. It is
worthwhile reading the question statement 2 3 times as guesswork based combination of knowledge and elimination of
choices usually works in these questions.

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M y Comfor t Level: Because of my reading habit, the contex tual meaning of a wor d comes very easily to me and this
helps me in sentence completion fill in the blanks. I us ually attempt all s entence completion ques tions .

P ar a-jumbles and Deductive logic ar e logic bas ed questions and no prior knowledge of any area is required. Hence
you can you can work your way thru in these questions even if the logic is not completely clear. Also the choices are of great
help in these questions. It is advisable to move back and forth between the question and the choices to get to the correct
answer. For example, in Para-jumbles, identify the opening or closing or a logical pair and eliminate the choice that does not
adhere to it. Successively eliminate the incorrect choices to get the correct answer.

M y Comfor t Level: These are my areas of strength; Ill usually not make a mistake in these questions. I work on
E limination of choices in Parajumbles. I try to identify the opening or closing or a logical pair and successively eliminate
the incorrect choices.

Cr itical R eas oning and P ar a completion questions can be attempted only if you understand the logic, elimination of
choices is can help you reach the answer faster but the logic is essential.

M y Comfor t Level: I am comfortable with these questions. Ill typically read the passage and get the answer by elimination
of choices. If I do not understand the passage, I will not attempt the question.

Logical/Analytical r eas oning questions are similar to the reasoning questions of DI and hence are a boon for students
who are weak in language but good in QA/DI.

M y Comfor t Level: This works for me most of the time however I always exercise caution in these questions because many
a time the questions are deceptive and time consuming.

Unlike QA or DI, where most of the time it is visible that the question can or cannot be solved by us, in VA all ques tions
look s olvable so we end up attempting all questions and end up with a high number of incorrect answers. Hence in English
it is advisable not to go in for guesswork. When in doubt, leave the ques tion.

Now on to my rules for attempting the VALR section:

1. A paper is not a place for R &D, hence a new type of question will be looked at only if I can peg it to an existing
question type.

2. I r ead the choices along with the ques tion as it helps in elimination of choices.

3. In my weak areas, when in doubt I leave the ques tion without marking the answer.

4. In R ound 1 (R 1) I sequentially attempt the following question types:


a. Vocabulary and sentence completion,
b. Grammar,
c. Deductive Logic,
d. Parajumbles.

5. In R ound 1 (R 1), Ill also glance thru the RC passages to understand the length, subject and the question type of the
passage.

6. In R ound 2 (R 2), I will attempt logical reasoning, critical reasoning, para-completion & summary questions.

7. In R ound 3 (R 3), I will attempt the RC passages.

What Nex t: Work out a similar set of rules for yourself and see if you can attempt a M ock CAT using them. In the video
analysis of Mock CATs you would have seen me applying these rules. I will also upload a paper separately along with a write
up on how I attempted the paper.

All the best.

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Liked this post? Also read 7 Rules to Excel in QA

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88 THOUGHTS ON 7 RULES TO EXCEL IN CAT VA

Vaishali Jain
on July 21, 2012 at 6:40 pm said:

This was a good insight on the VA section, Sir. Elimination of choices mostly works for me. Thanks for
sharing your thoughts.

sumit jhawar
on July 21, 2012 at 6:52 pm said:

Thanks sir for your advice. It helps us a lot. I will definately try to apply them in the next procterd or
unproctered mock. Please keep us updating with your immense knowledge.

purav patel
on July 22, 2012 at 4:01 pm said:

Thanx sir, its being very helpful for me spl in VA section..If u have any other thoughts related to CAT
exam so share it ..

vivek narula
on July 22, 2012 at 8:49 pm said:

Thanks sir . i will definetely try this logic in my mock


sir plz help me out how i improve my vocab..

GP
on August 2, 2012 at 3:14 am said:

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Vivek,

Revise all MCQs of vocab that you have come agross every week till CAT

human2011
on July 24, 2012 at 6:44 am said:

Good blog..
Thanks to CL!

nemo
on July 25, 2012 at 4:17 pm said:

good article

Divya
on August 3, 2012 at 12:23 pm said:

thanks sir! it was indeed a valuable suggestion but i found it little worthy 4 mewhen i went 4 d same
strategy, i found myself leaving lots of questions unattemptedso..would you please suggest strategy for
increasing attempts with accuracyi am really bothered about it!

Shivam Agarwal
on August 3, 2012 at 4:51 pm said:

Sir,
thank you for this great insight into the CAT cracking code but CAT is more of a thinking based exam
rather than speed.. (owing to the recent trend of the exam).. hence how should one get going when it
comes to intense speed tests like the NMAT, SNAP etc what are the basic underlying techniques that
are crucial to these speed tests, which are different than those used to bell the CAT.
kindly help..

GP
on August 4, 2012 at 2:19 am said:

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Shivam, Ill be writing on these tests separately

chandra dhar
on September 10, 2012 at 3:58 pm said:

sir,
thanks for this
please tell also about CMAT (how to crack cmat 100%il)

Gejo
on September 11, 2012 at 5:40 am said:

Hi Chandra,

If I go by last years CMAT, the quant section is easy scoring. Which means, you must get almost
all of the 25 questions correct. LR is also not that challenging has a mix of questions, should get
at least 20-22 correct. You could find VA a bit challenging. There are no lengthy RC passages, but
it has CR type questions. Practice GMAT type CR questions. The game changer is going to be
GK/GA session. However, if you have ensured very high scores in the other 3 sections, and
manage about 40-50% of the GA/GK questions, you are on your way to get a very high percentile.

Regards
Gejo

divya singh
on September 11, 2012 at 1:43 pm said:

hello sir!!!!
waiting for ur post HOW I ATTEMPTED PROC MOCK 8.
it really helps me a lot while analysing my mocks.

Gaurav Kumar
on September 13, 2012 at 8:22 am said:

Hey! What about Round 3???


Plz suggest

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priya
on October 2, 2012 at 3:50 pm said:

Sir,I am good at logical reasoning ,rc(not philosophy),para completion ,avg at parajumbles,go by intuition
in vocab,grammar..plz tell me strategy

GP
on October 2, 2012 at 4:40 pm said:

Priya, In VALR, start with LR then move on to RC then PC, PJ and finally vocab and grammar.

Shruti
on October 17, 2012 at 10:48 am said:

Sir,

Still a minimum number of attempts you would advise? Like you pointed out,even I end up marking many
(24-25) and getting negative points.

GP
on October 18, 2012 at 8:40 am said:

Shruti, this has been covered in the answer to your other query.

Shruti
on October 17, 2012 at 10:49 am said:

Sir,

Still a minimum number of attempts you would advise? As you pointed out, even I mark a lot and end up
getting negatives.

GP
on October 18, 2012 at 7:54 am said:

Shruti, Considering the CAT12 papers that have been conducted so far, it appears that an attempt
of 20-22 in VALR is a very good attempt. 3 LR sets (9 Qs), 2 RCs (6-7 Qs), 2-3 Parajumbles, 2-3
Para completion and 1 Fill in the blank add up to a total of 20-22 questions. Any attempts from
Grammar (2 Qs) and Phrasl Verb is a bonus.

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Mansi
on October 18, 2012 at 10:00 am said:

Dear Sir,

Please help me on how to go about the VA/LR section..accuracy in this section has fallen down to 50%. I
tend to attempt too many questions in this section to compensate for the attempts in QA (18-21).

GP
on October 18, 2012 at 11:13 am said:

Mansi, the solution to your problem is in the question itself. You should not try to compensate for
QA by attempting more questions in VALR as it is reducing your score. Also 18-21 is a very good
attempt for QA there there is no need to compensate for anything.

Jayasimha
on July 18, 2013 at 4:00 pm said:

Sir, can you please tell how long one should spend time on the above mentioned rounds R1, R2 and R3?

GP
on July 21, 2013 at 2:26 pm said:

Jayasimha, this is individual specific based on the kind of questions that you attempt in each
round. For example if you attempt RC in R1 then it will take more time as compared to attempting
VA in RI.

Rupesh
on July 19, 2013 at 6:31 pm said:

Sir,
Please suggest some ways to tackle Phrasal Verbs questions.
As these questions can get very tricky (in order to attempt or not).
How to improve on it?

GP
on July 21, 2013 at 2:29 pm said:
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Rupesh, this is the most difficult part of CAT and cannot really be prepared for because the
number of the words and their usages that are possible is huge. Read the statement once and if
you are confident of the answer mark it else leave it and move on to the next question.

Saurabh Singh
on July 20, 2013 at 1:36 pm said:

Very Knowledgeable and enlightening post. Thanks a lot sir. After having attended so many of your
webinars, while reading, your voice reverberates along with the text.Thanks a ton for all the motivational
posts.

satyam
on July 21, 2013 at 2:02 pm said:

sir can you please also tell how much time to spend on each type of questionI tried the above
mentioned procedure and it helped but there is only one problem that I am left with only 15-17 mins at the
end for 3 RCs if I do RCs at the last, because of which I dont get them right

GP
on July 21, 2013 at 2:34 pm said:

Satyam, It is okay to leave a RC passage if you are running short of time. To attempt all three RC
passages you would need 25-30 minutes, similarly the 3 LR sets will require around 25 minutes
and the 11 VA questions will take 15-20 minutes.

Shivam Pathak
on July 26, 2013 at 2:23 pm said:

Thanks a lot sir. I am sure that this method will help me to increase my marks in VA section.

Saurabh Raina
on August 3, 2013 at 2:30 pm said:

A very captivating article by you sir !!

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In the last years CAT12 :
1) What was the appx score of a 95 percentile in VA/LR for an avg slot (as i heard 25th oct and 31st oct
where tough slots)
2) Appx how much raw score on 90 does one need to guarantee 95+ percentile (on a medium day slot)
3) Similarly for a tough slot what should be the appx raw score ?
Please do reply.

Lakshay Makkar
on August 7, 2013 at 6:32 pm said:

Sir I am An Ipm IIM Indore aspirant. Tell me how to prepare for it and what study material I should prefer.
What all I need to do to crack. Plz reply sir

Team CL
on August 26, 2013 at 11:08 am said:

Dear Lakshay,
The IPM course of IIM Indore selects candidates through an aptitude test, apart from other
academic considerations. The syllabus for the test includes both quantitative and verbal ability.
The syllabus is primarily of class 10 level. Thus, it will be helpful to study the BBA material
provided by Career Launcher. Also, start reading newspaper editorials for a better grasp on
English.

sonia
on August 12, 2013 at 8:24 am said:

Sir please write on DI, as most of us are not able to perform well in that section.
or if possible cud we have a webinar exclusively on DI?

thanks

GP
on August 12, 2013 at 4:39 pm said:

Sonia, will plan for a session on DI.

saurabh
on August 20, 2013 at 7:23 pm said:

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Sir,
where will i get Topic-wise cat questions to practice? both QADI & VALR with ans & sir any chance of
getting them reapeated in cat? plz reply sir

GP
on August 22, 2013 at 4:33 am said:

Saurabh, refer to this link for the topic wise CAT questions with solutions
http://www.gkpublications.com/index.php?
route=product/product&keyword=CAT&category_id=50&product_id=539
In CAT 20012 questions have been repeated from the earlier editions of CAT.

saurabh
on August 22, 2013 at 6:49 pm said:

thank u sir

Shivam Singhal
on February 27, 2014 at 2:58 pm said:

hello sir
I am Shivam Singhal , B.Tech final year student searching for a good Job.
Recently i have appeared in Elitmus test for job in software company but my verbal percentile is 25.27 ,
how it improve my verbal please reply. .

GP
on February 28, 2014 at 5:01 am said:

Shivam, I have not followed the eLitmus test so it will not be possible for me to guide. However if it
is similar to the VA section of MBA entrances then the rules given in this post and the other posts
on VA should help you improve you score.

sahil
on June 22, 2014 at 5:36 am said:

sir please upload further proctored mocks videos


as it is very helpful for us
thank u

GP

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on June 22, 2014 at 11:56 am said:

Sahil, they are being uploaded.

sanjay bisht
on June 28, 2014 at 1:11 pm said:

Thank you very much sir..

saurabh kumar
on June 22, 2014 at 2:22 pm said:

Hello Sir
Since last year I am facing a diff type of problem . I am able to solve almost all the questions in quants
during self analysis but during exam conditions my mind stops working because of which my percentile
never crosses 85. All the mistakes that I commit are very silly often in division and multiplication. Because
of which my mind is preoccupied and spend lots of time in simple questions during exam hours. Another
problem that I face is although I know my strength and weakness but I am not able to implement it in
exam conditions and tend to carry away with questions which looks simple and are simple(specially one
liners with generalized options) try using SQC techniques and end up committing silly mistake.
Could you please suggest some idea by which I can improve my accuracy.

GP
on June 26, 2014 at 11:43 am said:

Saurabh, while revision will be helpful to some extent but this will require a deeper analysis,
suggest that you sit down with a faculty who understands your strengths/weaknesses to work out
a way to rectify the problems.

Suhas Goel
on June 22, 2014 at 8:47 pm said:

Sir

Where to get the proctored mock 05 analysis by you??and what about the other 4?? where can i get
them?? Pls tell

GP
on June 24, 2014 at 7:44 am said:

Suhas, Proc Mock 5 analysis by Gejo (CL Mumbai, IIM C alumni) would have been uploaded in

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your SIS. The analysis of the earlier Moocks are also available in the SIS.

naresh
on June 23, 2014 at 11:27 am said:

dear sir,

Could u pls tell about jims rohini and jims kalkaji which one better and which stream IB or general

GP
on June 24, 2014 at 7:39 am said:

Naresh, JIMS Rohini is considered better than Kalkaji and it is preferable to go for General MBA
over IB.

Sidhanshu
on June 24, 2014 at 11:11 am said:

Sir, I am a Career Launcher student, ! Can you Suggest me How can i improve vocabulary in Short time ?

GP
on June 24, 2014 at 5:41 pm said:

Sidhanshu, I will be posting an article on Vocabulary shortly.

Shyam
on June 24, 2014 at 7:03 pm said:

Hello Sir,
I am third year right now , I want to start preparation for CAT-15
which online course should i join to achive good score, also I came under DA category so please suggest
me about the same to get admission in top IIM

GP
on June 26, 2014 at 9:32 am said:

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Shyam, you can consider enrolling for Smart CAT Cracker Comprehensive for CAT15. As
mentioned earlier the right time to start your structured CAT15 preparation is Sep-Oct14. As a
DA candidate you will need around 75 to get a call from the top IIMs.

Sam
on June 25, 2014 at 12:20 am said:

Sir
Sectionals cut off are also higher as same as actual cut off or they are same as declared in selection
criteria? ??

GP
on June 25, 2014 at 5:23 am said:

Sam, the selection criteria gives the minimum, the actual sectional cutoffs are usually higher.

samir
on June 28, 2014 at 11:39 am said:

sir i am good in va&lr and always attempt around 25 to 27 with 85% accuracy .Is that
sufficent if i ll attempt around 25-27 in VA&LR and 15-17 in QA&DI in cat 2014 is that
sufficent or i should work hard for other topics???

GP
on June 30, 2014 at 4:41 pm said:

Samir, 25-27 in VALR is more than enough, since you are good in this section
focus on improving your accuracy.

samir
on June 30, 2014 at 6:04 pm said:

thanks once again sir for your advice now i am planing to attempt max.20
in QA&DI with min 18 (90% accuracy).

sam
on June 25, 2014 at 2:06 pm said:

sir
than how much should i attempt in QA&DI becoz i attempt around 14-15 in mocks and
expectiing to clear QA&DI cut off of IIM A,B,C,L,I,K AND FMS??

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samir
on June 26, 2014 at 3:41 pm said:

sir my strength is DI and i always get 7 or 8 correct but bad in QA if practicing well
in number system,geometry and modern maths is sufficient to achieve around 18
to 20 correct??

samir
on June 28, 2014 at 10:53 am said:

attempt around 17-18 is sufficient sir.because algebra i hate it and never


understood anything related to it.Algebra consist of 6-9 so i i leave it .IT
doesnt create any issue.

GP
on June 30, 2014 at 4:39 pm said:

Samir, 17-18 with 1-2 errors is acceptable but am not comfortable with
leaving the entire algebra since parts of it are very easy and it contributes
to about 6-7 out of 21 questions in QA. You hae about 4 months to improve
in this area.

GP
on June 27, 2014 at 5:17 am said:

Samir, with 7-8 correct in DI you need to target another 12 out of 21


questions in QA. Number Systems and Geometry are fine but Modern
Maths normally gives only 1-2 questions so it will be prudent to replace it
with Algebra.

samir
on June 26, 2014 at 3:59 pm said:

i was reading your article(The single-most unpardonable, gravest sin you


can commit in CAT)

you recommended to attempt around 15 with 100% accuracy and 20 with


4-5 incorrect it confuses me as i was planning to attempt around 15-17 with
100% accuracy..

please suggest what to do ???

GP
on June 27, 2014 at 5:15 am said:

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Samir, I have not recommended any of these. I have just said that till
CAT12, 15 net correct answers could get you a score of 95%ile in a
section. An attempt of 17 with 100% accuracy will possibly give you a
score of 97.5%ile. You should go for the plan that gives you a higher net
correct attempt.

samir
on June 26, 2014 at 3:47 pm said:

is this much attempt sufficient for IIM A,B,C,I,L,K AND FMS???

GP
on June 27, 2014 at 5:18 am said:

Samir, will be coming out for the number of attempts guideline shortly, till
then focus on pushing your attempts up by 1-2 questions in every mock.

samir
on June 25, 2014 at 1:44 pm said:

i am weak in quant and and always tried around 14 to 15 questions in mocks to get around
90% accuracy.BUT in cat 2014 how much i should attempt to clear cut off of iima,b,c,i,l,k
and fms QA&DI cut off

GP
on June 26, 2014 at 10:02 am said:

Samir, 14-15 attempts in QADI with 1-2 errors is very good at this stage. Suggest
that you slowly try increasing your attempts while maintaining your accuracy. If
you can reach around 20 attempts it would be more than sufficient.
Your target in CAT should be over 95%ile in each section and an aggregate of at
least 99%ile.

sam
on June 25, 2014 at 2:05 pm said:

sir

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than how much should i attempt in QA&DI becoz i attempt around 14-15 in mocks and expectiing to clear
QA&DI cut off of IIM A,B,C,L,I,K AND FMS??

Ak
on June 26, 2014 at 9:08 am said:

Sir,
i am a non cl student. Could pls refer a good book for VA for Cat/cet prep.

GP
on June 27, 2014 at 4:08 am said:

Ayush, I am not aware of any good book for VA in the market. Suggest that you enroll for a CET
correspondence program or get last years CET material from a friend.

Indranil
on June 26, 2014 at 10:06 am said:

Thank you GP sir for this illuminating article.

I am facing a strange problem. Some history of mine.

I have appeared for CAT13 but ended up with a astonishing VA score. I was awarded a mere 35%ile in
CAT13 where as I even got more than 90%ile in some of the Proc mock CATs back then. I was
devastated with this result but soon I took courage an enlisted myself in CLs correspondence program.

Since then I tried to work hard and tried to improve. I am giving TGA seriously and currently holding
advanced in all of the QA topics. Also I am categorized as expert in some of the arithmatic topics too.
With this confidence by my side whenever
I have given any Procs this year I have not seen any such kind of improvement in my performance. Sir
could you please direct me to the right path on how can I improve my QA and VA scores. I am currently
50% accurate in any procs or AIMCATS. I want to improve myself in all these matters.

Also I found your division between 3 rounds very useful. Sir can you please tell me what should be the
time distribution between these rounds viz. what should be the ideal time for R1/2/3.

PLease help me.

GP
on June 30, 2014 at 8:48 am said:

Indranil, apologise for the delay in responding to your query.


CAT13 scores in general and VALR scores in particular have been surprising for may students
and unfortunately the IIMs did not share any data to clear the confusion so my suggestion is to

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forget CAT13 and focus on the future.
This is the first post on the issue of test taking and I will be uploading more articles on this issue.
Question selection is an important part of test taking and it can significantly impact your
performance. Hope you have gone through the post The single-most unpardonable, gravest sin you
can commit in CAT. Will also be uploading a paper to help you understand the process of test
taking.
In QADI R1 would take around 30-35 minutes, R2 around 20-25 minutes and R3 the remaining 15-
20 minutes. It is okay if R3 does not happen.

Aman Jain
on June 26, 2014 at 6:46 pm said:

Sir please post the video analysis of promock-5

GP
on June 27, 2014 at 5:20 am said:

Aman, there were some technical issues that delayed the release of the video. Will be up today.
Apologise for the delay.

Sushant Lohani
on June 28, 2014 at 1:30 pm said:

Sir,Please upload notes/tips how to counter RCs/CRs/SCs involving philosophical topics like :
Postmodernism,Neoclassism,etc. Something to develop basic understanding of them. Usually, when I
read paras/articles involving Philosophy/Art my mind just shuts down.

GP
on June 30, 2014 at 5:01 pm said:

Sushant, will ask Gejo to do the same.

Sarat Chandra
on June 30, 2014 at 1:27 pm said:

Sir kindly help in the reading comprehension section. While preparing it is said, there should be lot of
reading, but my question is what are the things to be kept in mind while reading a particular article from

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the CAT point of view, what are the parameters that I should focus while I am reading. How can I ensure a
particular article has helped me for CAT exam. How can I make sure I am going the right way. How I can
assess myself after I have completed reading an article, how far i have understood, or how far if the same
article comes in the CAT exam I will be able to answer any question asked from it.
Thanks you sir.

GP
on July 1, 2014 at 5:34 pm said:

Sarat, I will be sharing Gejos articles on RC in a few days.

Srishty
on July 2, 2014 at 6:52 pm said:

Dear Sir, thanks for all these wonderful posts.


I am better in VA than QA. When I am attempting VA, I am comfortable almost equally in all the sub-
categories of questions that you mentioned (Except vocabulary questions). So, I would prefer attempting
RC too in the first or second round itself, because although it is time consuming, I feel Ill be able to mark
a few answers based on that. My question is whether you think it would be the right approach
(Considering I am almost equally comfortable with grammar, parajumbles, rc etc)?
Basically, I am trying to figure if its ok to attempt everything that you feel comfortable in in the first go,
time consuming or not, and leave only stuff that you are uncomfortable in for next rounds.

GP
on July 3, 2014 at 3:00 pm said:

Srishty, each one of us has to work out a way of attempting the paper that maximises ones score.
Go ahead and attempt RC in R1 itself if you are comfortable with all areas of VA. Try out out
different approaches in the next 3-4 papers and finalise the one that gives you the best results.

Srishty
on July 3, 2014 at 6:20 pm said:

Thank you sir, will try doing that.

sahil
on July 3, 2014 at 1:04 pm said:

Sir,
i m student of cl cp centre(test series),in mocks i have been solving quant with relative ease and my %ile
has been above 90% in most of the mocks in qa sec but the problem starts with the va section.i just dont

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know how to go forward with va/rc ques.please guide need your help desperatly

GP
on July 3, 2014 at 3:39 pm said:

Sahil, start the VALR section with the question types that you are most comfortable with. If you
are not confident of VA questions then attempt 1-2 sets of LR before you move to EU/RC. Among
the EU question types focus on Para Jumbles and Para Completion questions which usually
contribute about 6 questions and are logical in nature. The grammar and the word-usage questions
should be avoided since most of us are poor in this area. Scan the RC passages, identify the one
whose topic you are most comfortable with and attempt it after reading the passage at your speed.

sahil
on July 4, 2014 at 5:06 am said:

thanks sir for ur advice


will implement these ideas in my next mock

udit pattnaik
on July 3, 2014 at 4:46 pm said:

Sir,

I would like to knowmin how many questionswith around 90% accuracy is required to be attempted
in each section, to score at least 95 %..I know its a question without any certain answers..But according
to ur experience I think you will be able to give us an idea..I am sure its a common questionfor all.

udit pattnaik
on July 3, 2014 at 4:51 pm said:

sorry to be redundant !!! I got my answer in ur blog -The single-most unpardonable, gravest sin you
can commit in CAT..

Thanks

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Why read his blog ?


GP is India's original and only aptitude
guru. Co-founder, CL Educate Ltd (formerly
Career Launcher), GP is CLs best loved
mentor and Personality Development (PDP)
expert. Lakhs of students have picked up
tips, advice and guidance from him for the
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exams as well the GD-PI stage. Now GP tells
all in this blog.

Read his story of how a pathetic student


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