The Common Admission Test, also known as the CAT exam, is conducted on the last Sunday of November every year. CAT is a national-level MBA entrance exam, which means that students from all over India can apply for the exam. It is conducted by the older Indian Institutes of Management. It is the gateway to admission at IIMS to pursue two-year full-time management programs.
Aspirants must prepare for the CAT exam with full focus and conviction to ensure that they perform well. In order to do this, the students need to invest their time in the preparation of every section. In this article, we will focus on the CAT VARC section.
Basic Details Of The CAT Exam
In order to perform well in any exam, students need to start with their basic knowledge about all the details of the exam. The mode of the exam is computer-based. The exam is conducted at centres located in around 170 cities across India. There are three sections in the exam. The sections are the CAT VARC section, the DILR section and the QA section. There are a total of 68 questions in the exam. The time duration of the exam is 120 minutes, but there is a strict sectional time limit for every section. Students will find that they have 40 minutes to complete the questions of each section.
What Is The CAT VARC Section?
The Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension section of the exam is usually the first section of the CAT exam. In this section, there will be verbal ability for CAT questions and also reading comprehension for CAT. Students will find that reading passages form a major part of the section. As a whole, this section is entirely dedicated to the English skills of the students.
In order to perform well in this section, the students need to have knowledge about vocabulary and grammar. This will allow the students to become more familiar with what the CAT VARC section can include as questions in the final exam.
Syllabus of CAT VARC Section
As for the syllabus of the CAT VARC section, the students will find that there will be Reading Comprehensions for CAT. This takes up to 16 questions, which can generally be asked on main ideas, inferences, tone and structure of the passage. Furthermore, there can be fact-based, inference-heavy, and application-based questions. The advice for the students while attempting the RC for CAT is that they need to skim through the passage really well so that they can find the answers fast.
Apart from this, candidates will also find that there are verbal ability for CAT questions. These are basically eight questions in the exam that include topics such as logical arrangement, para jumbles, summaries, odd sentence out, completions and insertions, fill-in-the-blanks, finding the grammar, etc. These eight questions are basically grammatical and vocabulary-related.
Tips For VARC Preparation For CAT
Given below are the points that students can pay attention towards while preparing for the CAT exam-
- One of the first important tips that students should try and abide by is that they need to know how to pace through the reading comprehensions in the exam. The majority of the CAT VARC section is the reading comprehension. And if students are able to skim through the text and remember the important points, then it will help them to solve the section much faster.
This is an area that can take most of the time as well because the test-takers have to go back and look for the answers if they have not retained the important points.
- Solving multiple mock tests and sample papers is an effective way of preparing for this section. It will help them get an idea of how RC questions are framed and how they can manage their time while reading the comprehension as well.
- As for the verbal ability part of the preparation, students should refer to different books and concept videos from where they can easily find ideas of the different topics that are part of this section. It will enable them work on their skills. Solving various questions will help them to understand if they have retained all of the topics that they have learned well or not.
Conclusion
It’s not just about the CAT VARC section, but preparation for every section of the CAT exam requires practice. Students should prepare consistently and practice different types of questions every single day. This is the only way that would help the students to work on their skills.
Covering the syllabus is not equivalent to understanding the topics. The learning will be fruitful only when they solve multiple questions. Therefore, a solid preparation involves working on a lot of aspects.
Frequently Asked Questions
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How many sections are there in the CAT exam?
A: There are a total of three sections in the exam. The names of the sections are Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension, Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning, and Quantitative Aptitude. Every section individually tests different skills of the students, and there are questions in each section specified for the topics that are a part of that particular section.
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How many questions are there in each section of the CAT exam?
A: There are a total of 68 questions in the exam. In the first section, which is CAT VARC, there are 24 questions. In the last two sections, which are quantitative aptitude and data interpretation and logical reasoning, there are 22 questions each.
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What kind of questions are there in the CAT exam?
A: There are mainly two types of questions that are put forward in the CAT exam. The first type of question is the multiple-choice question. The second type of questions are Type in the Answer or TITA, wherein candidates have to type the answers in the space provided. There are no options for typing in the answer-type questions, and for the MCQ-based questions, the students will find options provided to them.
