Verbal Ability for the CAT

326 Pages·2011·2.432 MB·English

by  Kumar, Sujit

Verbal Ability
for the CAT
Sujit Kumar
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The aim of this publication is to supply information taken from sources believed to be valid and
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Contents
Preface v
Introduction 1
1. Last Sentence of a Paragraph 9
2. Paragraph Summary 37
3. Critical Reasoning 65
4. Fact, Inference, Judgment 95
5. Sentence Completion and Cloze 115
6. Paragraph Jumbles 137
7. Logical Set Theory 157
8. Word Usage 183
9. Spot the Error 197
10. Confusable Words 221
11. Reading Comprehension 235
12. Analogy/Odd Word Out 273
Word List 291
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Preface
It took me quite long to finish this book. Anyone who is familiar with the CAT will admit that
the questions in the CAT, especially in the verbal section and from the year 2000 onwards,
demand much more than a casual comprehension of the given information. They test
the candidates’ analytical and reasoning skills. The questions are beautifully crafted and
generally follow clearly defined lines of reasoning. It was, hence, difficult for me to match
each question in this book to the difficulty level of the CAT. However, at the end of it all, I am
completely satisfied with the quality of the questions in this book.
This book contains all the question types that have been asked in the CAT over the
years. The purpose of this book is to make a candidate completely familiar with the different
question types and discusses methods to solve these questions. This will benefit students
preparing for the CAT on their own, as well as those who are going to coaching institutes by
giving them additional guidelines as well as practice material.
It is my earnest hope that the years of experience that I have as a verbal faculty and the
learning that has happened by being with thousands of highly focused students is reflected
in this book. I am sure students will find this book most useful. I will be happy to receive
feedback and queries at [email protected].
SUJIT KUMAR
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Introduction
One of the most frequently asked questions about Verbal Ability in competitive examinations
is, Âhow do I prepare for the Verbal section?Ê
It is possible to answer this question.
While students have adequate clarity about how to prepare for the Quantitative,
Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, and General Awareness sections of competitive
examinations; and even the preparation for Group discussions and Personal Interviews is
better structured, preparing for the Verbal section more often than not is without clarity,
structure, or direction. Most students merely satisfy themselves by solving as many questions
in verbal as possible and then hope for the best in the test itself! While there is no magic
bullet that will transform oneÊs verbal aptitude overnight, the unstructured ways of working
only adds to the uncertainty about verbal. And precisely for this reason the decisive part of
the test becomes the verbal section. A simple truth about the students taking the CAT and
similar examinations is that the number of students good in mathematics is more than the
number of students good in verbal. The CAT then essentially becomes a competition among
those who are good in mathematics vying for the best verbal scores.
While the range of scores obtained by the candidates in mathematics and DI and LR is
within a narrow band of 55 to 65% of the total marks, the overall scores and percentiles of
successful candidates are significantly influenced by their verbal scores!
Rather than analysing such statistics further to reinforce the importance of the verbal
section, one should get down to systematically tackling this aspect and not let oneÊs preparation
in mathematics and DI go waste because of verbal. If you are good in mathematics and DI,
you must spend a lot of time preparing for verbal rather than become better and better in
your strong areas. If you are good at verbal, make sure that you spend much more time
in quant and DI in order to save the exam and your chances rather than strengthen your
strengths and perpetually blame the weak area for your failure.
The first difficulty that a student faces about the Verbal section is that unlike quant
and DI, there seems to be no clearly defined topics or concepts/principles to study (except,
perhaps, grammar), but there are only different question types. And the student plunges
headlong into solving as many questions as possible of all these different types, without
realizing that some of these question types may need no practice at all. They may only
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2 Verbal Aptitude for the CAT
demand time or an intense application of the mind to solve them. I would cite Paragraph
Jumbles as an example of such types. These questions need sufficient time and several
readings of the sentences rather than the experience of having solved innumerable jumbled
paragraphs during practice. Anyone who applies his/her mind to the given sentences and
spends sufficient time arranging the sentences can get the sequence right·practice may
enhance the confidence one has in dealing with these questions rather than accuracy. This is
not to discount the importance of practice of solving verbal questions but only to emphasize
that the preparation for verbal ability must be done with absolute clarity about what skill
exactly is being tested by the particular question type.
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The broad areas tested in the verbal section are familiar to everyone. They are:
(cid:262) Reading comprehension
(cid:262) Verbal Logic/Reasoning
(cid:262) Grammar, and
(cid:262) Vocabulary
All the questions in any competitive test fall under one of these areas. Sometimes, equal
importance is attached to each area, though some examinations lay greater emphasis on a
particular area. For example, almost 50 per cent of the questions in the verbal section in the
CAT are reading comprehension questions. The remaining 50% of the questions give equal
importance to the other areas. XAT is reasoning and vocabulary intensive. Thus, you may
have to fine tune your preparation according to the specific emphasis of an exam; however,
the general approach to verbal preparation is the same for all exams. This chapter throws
light on this aspect of the preparation.
Though it is essential to solve sufficient number of questions in each of these areas
during your practice, it is far more important to realize that these areas are not watertight
compartments or different topics like Geometry and Algebra.
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Verbal is essentially one area, and a unified area. Reading skill (comprehension), reasoning,
vocabulary, and grammar are all indicators of oneÊs proficiency in a language rather than
different areas one can or should master separately. Hence it is futile to try to improve your
verbal aptitude by concentrating on one of these areas and ignoring or underplaying the
others. There are students who believe (I do not know how far it can be true) that they are
good in reasoning but not in vocabulary, or grammar, or reading comprehension. DoesnÊt
one come across vocabulary items in a reasoning question? Does not one have to understand
the grammatical structure (though not technically) in order to comprehend correctly?
This unified nature of verbal (language) needs to be borne in mind when one begins oneÊs
preparation for verbal. Hence, even when your study material or training schedules treat
vocabulary, grammar etc., as separate units or types or topics, you have to understand that it
is done only for convenience and for imparting a superficial structure to your efforts rather
than treat them as separate areas.
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Verbal Aptitude 3
What it implies is, while you spend enough time to solve questions in each of these areas
in order to improve your underlying aptitude to solve these questions, verbal needs to be
approached in totality as well. Hence, it is necessary to pay attention to the vocabulary items
that you encounter in a reading comprehension passage at that very moment, pay attention
to the complex grammatical structures in a reasoning passage, work out the line of reasoning
that helps you arrive at a particular answer in a comprehension passage etc., as you solve
questions of these different types. At least part of the preparation must be undertaken this
way.
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Another point to bear in mind about verbal is that the efforts you spend in this area and
the improvement in skill/proficiency that you may acquire in verbal are never wasted. To
an extent, geometry stops being useful to you in life at some point or the other unless you
are engaged in jobs that require geometry. This can be said about most things that you learn
either in your academic pursuits or during the preparation for competitive examinations.
You can ponder over whether verbal skills (vocabulary, reading skills etc.) stop being useful
at any point in your life. ArenÊt impressive communication skills (effective vocabulary and
clarity of thought and expression) relevant and significant wherever you are, whatever career
you are in, or even in your social life?
The language skills that you acquire or improve through your study and practice for
a competitive examination will not stop being useful to you even if you do not get into a
b-school. Such an attitude and approach to verbal will take the stress off your preparation for
verbal. You will learn to like words (vocabulary) or passages (abstract reading comprehension
passages) because they are useful instruments for a larger goal. A youngster with passion
and communication skills is a delight for everyone else. A youngster with great passion and
poor communication skills is confusing to everyone else. When you look at verbal ability
from this perspective, difficult words (ideas) and abstract passages become challenges worth
mastering! In short, verbal preparation ought not to be merely from the exam point of view.
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We have been told ad nauseam about the importance of the reading habit. Yet, we are unable
to develop the reading habit. More than a lack of desire to read, lack of time constrains
youngsters from developing the reading habit. If it is true about you, and you have realized
it, half the battle is already won. Earmark fifteen minutes or so every day before going to
sleep to read a few pages from a good book, and watch how the habit develops! It is very
important, in the beginning, to read what you like for the habit to set in. If you like thrillers,
read thrillers. If you like romantic fiction, read it. If you like physics, read physics. Unless
you read what you like, the habit will never set in. Once you get the reading habit, it is easier
to get into the preparatory mode for competitive examinations by moving on to difficult,
unfamiliar, abstract and varied stuff little by little.
Some of you may be worried about the lack of speed in reading, especially in the
passages that you solve. Practice speed reading (in this context, merely reading fast·not
worrying about speed-reading techniques etc.) for at least fifteen minutes with the newspaper
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