Common Admission Test 2009 is approaching fast! This year it will be conducted from November 28 (Saturday) to December 7 (Monday). With less than a month to go, it is now time for a reality check on your preparation level. Have you been reading and working on your grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure?
Will you be able to find an assumption hidden in the author’s idea? How do you know what is implied in the passage? Can you logically complete a paragraph in the given time?
Do you know the difference between words that sound similar? And do they make sense in a sentence? Also, now that CAT is a computer-based test (CBT), will you get less or more time to answer questions? How do you address these problems? Here are some suggestions to help you up your verbal score.
Reading Comprehension (RC)
Last year, 20 of 40 Qs were based on RC. Before that, it was 12 of 25 and in 2006 it was a whopping 15 of 25 Qs. This pattern indicates that you cannot afford to skip RC questions.
Remember, RC is like data interpretation. And it is the only section, where the answers are right in front of you. So, you must learn how to find them. Practise these strategies daily.
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How to prepare
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Why?
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Read editorials daily
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Exposes you to various writing styles
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Summarise in your own words…as if you are explaining it to your kid brother!
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Helps you answer the following:
- What is the main idea?
- Why has the author mentioned xyz?
It also helps you structure questions
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Make a mental note of what you think of the author you are currently reading
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Helps you answer the following:
- What according to the author…
- The tone of the passage
- This text has been most likely extracted from…
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Take note of unfamiliar words and phrases, and look them up later
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Helps you answer the following:
- The term xyz in the first paragraph means…
- The word xyz can best be replaced by…
Also helps to improve your word usage score
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During the test
Here are some quick tips to help you absorb information, faster and more precisely.
- Make sure you read the RC, as you would, say, a magazine article.
- You should also try to mentally summarise what the author wants to say in each paragraph.
- Make it a point to link the ideas in each section to those in the previous paragraphs.
This way, you may be able to answer all questions without reading the passage again.
When you are through with reading, you must be in a position to answer the following Qs without referring to the passage:
- What is the author trying to convey?
- Why has the author written this passage?
- How has the author structured his/ her thoughts?
- How can you convey in two sentences, the core idea and impact of each paragraph?
What is the mood of the author?
Vocabulary and word usage For the past two years, word usage questions were based on words that sounds similar, context appropriateness, awkward usage and incorrect phrases.
Remember, these are tricky questions and the options are bound to confuse you unless you know all words.
The bad news is that there is no easy way around these questions except in the fill-in-the-blanks section where you can work with the logic of the sentence. Questions based on idioms and phrases are likely to appear.
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How to prepare
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Why?
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Underline five words in a newspaper and look them up, daily
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CAT lays more emphasis on whether you know how to use a word
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Form sentences once you’re confident of their usage
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You rarely find direct antonym or synonym questions
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Go through a list of words that sounds similar (with meanings and usage)
Eg: Dissemble and disassemble
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Look at the last few years’ papers
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Compete with a friend. Quiz each other on words from word lists, newspapers and CAT Qs
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It is one of the best ways to learn a word list
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Read up on phrasal verbs and idiomatic usage
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Unless you know a phrase, it’s difficult to answer these Qs. The idiom or phrase by itself may make no sense. Eg: Catch forty winks (meaning taking a short nap)
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Grammar
Usually, grammar questions in CAT are presented in these formats: Choose the incorrect sentence, choose that part of the sentence, which is incorrect or the GMAT style sentence correction where a part of the sentence is underlined and you have to choose the right option. They could include word usage as well.
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How to prepare
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Why?
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Practise from a grammar exercise book
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You may only cover what you’re unsure of
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While practising, explain why the other options are wrong rather than justify why one is right
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You learn to identify common errors and increase your ability to spot errors, in the options
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Familiarise yourself with a list of common errors such as subject-verb agreement, modifiers, parallel structure and pronoun errors
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Since sentence structure is based on a set of rules, so are the errors. There’s a readily available list of common sentence errors, making it easy to cover them before CAT 2009
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Reasoning
For sometime now, students have been expecting GMAT—style Critical Reasoning questions. However, as a rule, the CAT never falls for predictions. Jumbled sentences have always been a favourite. Fact and Inference Judgment questions popped up in a difficult avatar, a few years ago. Syllogisms, once popular, are pretty easy to solve and you will be lucky if they appear in CAT 2009. The section ‘Complete the idea or paragraph’ tests your ability to understand the flow of logic. Heed these tips to improve your reasoning score.
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How to prepare
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Why?
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Tackle each question format separately
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Reasoning questions are based on inductive and deductive reasoning
Practising them separately will help you score better
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Read up on the following: argument errors, cause-effect relationship, faulty analogy, strength of evidence
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This will help you answer logical reasoning Qs
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Practise from CAT question papers and similar tests
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Once you are familiar with the question formats, then like most students, you will find reasoning questions, easy
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The new format
Log on to the CAT web site (www.catiim.in), and take a tutorial for the computer-based test format. During the test, you can mark questions that you wish to answer alittle later. You will be more comfortable when you understand how the RCpassages appear. As the format of CAT has changed you should practise reading passages on a computer screen. Now, test your reading speed vis-à-vis a hardcopy test. Good luck! (Sangeetha Sashidharan is an independent education consultant, with 12 years of experience in the field of training for various entrance examinations such as CAT, GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, IELTS and SAT.)