Acing Verbal Ability And Reading Comprehension In CAT 2017 - Tips From 99.81 Percentile Scorer In CAT VARC
I scored 99.81 percentile in VARC in CAT 2015 and am currently a Second Year student. I mostly relied on self-preparation and was preparing while I was working in a full-time job. Ask me anything and everything about VARC and test-taking strategies.
Sasi Priya Byra
10:00 PM
11:00 PM
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Nirvit Rustagi
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yashrajkothari07
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Ankur Parmar
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Shikhar Saxena
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1.type of questions asked?
04:33 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Can you please be more specific? Typical VARC questions are based on passages, sentence completion question, paragraph rearrangement etc.
04:36 PM
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abhinav.1310003
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Took cat for 3 yrs, took coaching , scored 34 - 44 percentile in varc, perform very poor in rc, though I've finished RC material of TIME
04:36 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Hello Shikhar, there's surely a way out of this. Can you please tell me the specific issue you are facing in RC? Is time an issue, or while answering questions you are unable to zero in on the right answer? Or anything else?
04:37 PM
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Saurabh Kumar
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Nirvit Rustagi
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Ankur Parmar
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Raj Raval
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abhinav.1310003
How to improve RCS
04:37 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Tips to crack RCs : 1. Improve reading speed : read daily, read various topics, read newspaper editorials regularly. Consistently doing this really will show an improvement 2.Attempts RCs strategically : While attempting RCschoose the RC which has a topic you are familiar with 3. Don't get stuck in reading the passage : Skim through the passage very quickly in the first iteration, don't get stuck even if you are unable to understand any part. Read the questions, then look for the answer in the passage as you would already know in which part of the passage the answer can be found.
04:41 PM
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Ankur Parmar
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Bhuvan Kumar
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krishnateja961
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yashrajkothari07
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Abhinav Agrawal
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Ankur Parmar
Hey I am very weak in VA how to increase percentile I am able to eliminate two options most of the times but i get it wrong help me I am also full time working
04:36 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Trick to crack verbal ability is two fold, first practise a lot of questions, and then try to find a pattern in your errors. Eg. In case of paragraph rearrangement/chronology related questions, are you finding it hard to identify the opening sentence, or are you finding it hard to find the body of the passage. After noticing the pattern in your errors, you will be able to work on your mistakes easily
04:44 PM
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shpreety999
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jenam2681996
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shpreety999
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Hello Mam. What, according to you, would be the ideal way of attempting the Questions in VA RC section.? first all RCs, then VA, or first VA then RC, or some other...
04:43 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
It really depends on your comfort area. I was comfortable with doing the RCs, hence I first finished the easy RCs of all the RCs ( I did 2-3 Rcs first) then I went on to do the easy and comfortable VA questions. Went back to the slightly easier RC, completed that, and then finished off the VA part which had no negative marking, and then in the end did the difficult RC. This was my strategy in the CAT exam. In mocks also I scanned through the paper, and attempted questions that I found to be the easiest first, irrespective of it being RCs or VA
04:47 PM
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Sachin Gupta
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Sachin Gupta
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Sachin Gupta
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thohidthohid
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Pallavi Bhamare
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Sachin Gupta
Am not able to all more than 20 questions in verbal.
04:47 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Can you please tell me where you are getting stuck? But in my experience, difficulty in not being able to attempt more questions is usually due to slow reading speed. Reading speed can be easily improved, by doing daily practice. 30-45 days of daily reading of even an hour can do wonders for your reading speed. If there's any other issue you are facing other reading speed,please tell me
04:50 PM
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Amritanshu Arora
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Mayank Gupta
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Sachin Gupta
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thohidthohid
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mam accuracy is 50% in VARC
04:50 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
accuracy can be significantly improved by understanding the pattern in your mistakes. Please practise regularly, do more exercises, try to find patterns in you errors, and work on those areas. Eg. In RCs, if you are making errors in questions that ask summary of passage, or tone of passage, if you are able to identify the area, working on that becomes very easy
04:53 PM
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Himanshu Ranjan
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Sachin Gupta
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Mayank Gupta
My VARC scores varies alot sometimes I get 45 but sometimes it is around 20.In some mocks I am able to read all the passages and understand them but in some mocks I am not able to do so.Also the accuracy is very low in RCs and very very low in VA.Please help
04:50 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
My hunch as to why this might be happening is that in the mocks with Rc topics familiar to you, you are probably able to score better and when RC topics are new to you, you probably score less. If this assumption I made is true, I would suggest you to develop a basic understanding of various topics like history, sci-tech, abstract topics, literature etc. Then you will have familiarity with all topics and might be able to do better. RCs accuracy can only be improved by doing rigorous practice, I faced this issue initially too, I started doing as much as 10-15 RCs everyday to overcome it. I would also make note of the kind of errors I made so as to not repeat them
04:56 PM
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thohidthohid
The highest ever I scored in VARC is 29 marks. Help me get better.
04:52 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
I would suggest you to spend atleast an hour everyday reading. Read newspaper editorials, read any novels that you find interesting, but read for an hour. This will help your reading speed. Secondly solve atleast 6-8 RCs everyday. Same goes for para jumbles and sentence correction questions, Do atleast 6 each of them every day. Practise and analysing your mistakes should make a significant difference
04:59 PM
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Sachin Gupta
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Nirvit Rustagi
Can you tell how should we practice in the last 2 months to get 95+ percentile in VARC section currently getting 60+ percentile with 50-60 % accuracy
04:35 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Nirvit, as I have answered to other questions also. You can do the following three things. 1. Read daily - Read books that you like, atleast for an hour daily. Don't miss out on reading newspaper editorials. Try to read up on diverse topics do develop familiarity. 2. Practise topic wise questions - Do atleast 6-8 RCs everyday. 12 would be a healthy number. Do 6-8 para jumbles everyday, 6-8 sentence correction/completion questions. 3. Note down your mistakes - This will help you identify your weak areas. Take topic wise tests in your weak rease. If sentence correction/ completion is your weak area. Do more of them. Going into specifics, if in sentence correction, prepositions is your challenge, do exercises on prepositions.
05:05 PM
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Shilpa Thakur
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mam i am very much scared of sentence correction and para jumbles
05:00 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
I can help you with para jumbles. This was my favorite area. In para jumbles, first try to identify the opening and closing sentence. This is usually easy. Then try various combinations of the remaining sentences keeping the opening and closing paras constant. Try atleast 2-3 combinations. This process can be fastened by practise. Arun Sharma and Meenakshi Upadhyaya's book really helped me with Para jumbles
05:08 PM
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Nitin Tomar
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Sunil Sakri
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Shilpa Thakur
How to deal with abstract topics in rc? Art, philosophy etc.
05:05 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Honestly, I always solved them last. One another trick I used for particularly difficult Rcs was, read the questions first and try to find questions that ask factual answers. I would then try to find the answers from the passage. Trying to completely understand abstract passages is a big challenge. I was very pragmatic with these topics, my aim would be to just get the easy/fact based questions right in these RCs
05:11 PM
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my accuracy in VARC has been very good so far, but i am struggling to increase my attempt. Could you suggest something please.
05:09 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Which area is eating up your time? Va or RC? Time constraint comes up when your reading speed is slow or when you take a long time to answer a question. To improve reading speed, read daily. If you are fairly comfortable reader, then increase your difficulty level, read topics that are new to you daily. If you spend too much time on one question, the solve more and more exercises everyday. Spend most of of your time doing exercuse and misture of VA and Rc exercises to simulate the real exam. Time yourself while solving the questions. See which questions are eating up your time, spend more time on those questions
05:15 PM
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Sachin Gupta
Mam I am ready to sweat it out these 2 months.please tell me how can I score 60 marks in verbal in CAT in these 2 months
04:55 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Solve as many exercises as you can daily. Since you say you are ready to sweat it out, do atleast 12 RCs everyday and 6 each of VA questions. Time yourself doing these questions and see how much time you are taking in solving them Analyse your mistakes. Key to improving yourself is identifying your mistakes and making less of them as time progresses. If you identify mistake A today, next couple of days you should master the concept behind that mistake and not make it after 2 days.
05:18 PM
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Sahil Singhal
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Sachin Gupta
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Anuj Shekhawat
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my accuracy in rc is poor.i struggle in close options. kindly help
05:18 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
You need to correct your thinking behind choosing the particular option as your answer. First step of solving Rcs is reading the, second is understanding them in the spirit and context within which they were written. It is possible that your interpretation of the passage or that particular question is a bit off and hence that is causing you to make errors. You will have to identify your mistakes and work towards them. Even I struggled in choosing the right answer between 2 options, reading the question again and again, going back to the passage and reading the specific part of the passage related to the question, usually helped me.
05:22 PM
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From where to study grammar rules !
05:20 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
The book I suggested covers CAT related Grammar, coaching institutes materials also have it. If you want to master any particular topic you can always refer to Wren and Martin
05:23 PM
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Sasi Priya Byra
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i like to read articles...is reading good articles for 1 hour daily be sufficient to get a 99+ percentile in cat?currently i score around 80-85 percentile in the va rc section in time aimcat's. Or do i need to practise a few rc's daily?
05:27 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
Just reading will not at all help. Solevas many RCs as you can daily. Atleast 6 Rcs daily I would say
05:30 PM
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Nikhil Wakhloo
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Nikhil Wakhloo
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Mayank Gupta
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Sachin Gupta
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Mayank Gupta
Please suggest a book to solve RCs apart from Arun sharm
05:31 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
I solved TImE material and Arun sharma. That was enough for me. They have plenty of examples and models
05:31 PM
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Sachin Gupta
Mam can you please share your post in which you gave general advice
05:31 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
https://insideiim.com/objective-approach-cracking-subjective-cat-varc-cat-varc-99-81-percentile-scorer/
05:33 PM
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Nikhil Wakhloo
For cat specific RC,what should be the ideal strategy? Read the entire passage first or go through the questions?
05:30 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
I always as a rule read the passage first. Skimmed through the passage first and then read the questions, went back to the passage and read the parts in the passage on which questions were asked
05:34 PM
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Sachin Gupta
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Sasi Priya Byra
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Sachin Gupta
Can you please suggest some good websites to read articles from so that I get hang of every topic mainly-philosophy,humanity,art and culture,literature
05:37 PM
Sasi Priya Byra
http://www.history.com/ ; Literature you can read book reviews that come in newspapers or on websites like Scroll.com
05:38 PM
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Sachin Gupta
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Sachin Gupta
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SASI PRIYA BYRA
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