Hi. Glad to hear that you are willing to pursue your MBA from the best B-Schools of the country and hence, preparing for CAT.


Pattern: Before we understand the syllabus, let us talk about the pattern first. The CAT exam is of three hours, one hour per section in the following order (based on last 4 years trend):
1. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) - 34Q
2. Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR) - 32Q
3. Quantitative Aptitude (QA) - 34Q


Syllabus: Now that we have understood the pattern, let us talk about syllabus for individual sections:

1. VARC: The VARC section of CAT checks your ability of comprehending or analyzing a passage. Around 24 out of 34 questions are purely based on reading comprehension. Hence, this is the most important part you should focus on. Other portion of the syllabus includes -
Para Jumbles: Arranging the sentences to form a meaningful paragraph.
Odd sentence out: Finding which sentence doesn't matches with the rest.
Para summary: Which of the following sentences would best fit as a conclusion to the given paragraph.
Hence, you should focus more on these particular things in VARC. Please do not 'waste' your time in trying to build your vocabulary too much or making yourself a pro at Grammar. A person with average vocabulary and grammar skills can easily crack this section if he/she has good enough analyzing skills to understand the paragraphs and other questions.

2. DILR: This section includes 8 sets with 4 questions each. These 8 sets are framed to test your skills of interpretating the data and logical reasoning. It can include questions from following areas:
Linear Arrangements
Circular Arrangements
Games and Tournaments
Data Interpretation - Tables, Pi Charts, Graphs, Bars, Lines, Histogram
Venn Diagrams
Distribution
Optimization

3. QA: This section covers questions from the following topics:
Number System
Arithmetic - Ratio Proportion, Percentage, Profit Loss, Simple and Compound Interest, Average, Mixtures and Allegations, Time and Work, Time Speed Distance, Clock and Calendar, Cubes
Algebra - Quadratic, Functions, Inequalities, Logarithm, Sequences and Series, Graphs
Modern Math - Permutations and Combinations, Probability
Geometry - Triangle, Parallelogram, Circle, Mensuration
Higher Maths (optional) - Trigonometry, Limits


Books: If you want to study from books or any coaching institute resource, always remember - every resource is good enough to fetch you a good percentile. What only matters is how much efforts are you putting. For coaching institute material, almost all are same and you can refer any. For books, Arun Sharma, Nishit Sinha and Sarvesh Verma are good.
Hope that helps.
All the best for your CAT preparation.

Hello Aspirant!
Common Aptitude Test (CAT) is the national level exam .It is online based exam carries 3 sections basically
Quantitative aptitude

• Arithmetics (AP and GP )
  
• Ratio and proportion
  
• Percentages
  
• Simple and compound interest
  
• Profit and loss
  
• Geometry
  
• Trigonometry
  
• Modern maths ( probability and permutations and combination)
  
• Time and work
  
• Time and distance
  
• Coordinate geometry
  

Verbal ability

• Reading comprehension
  
• Para jumbles
  
• Para completions
  
• Fill in the blanks
  
• Summary of passage
  

Data Interpretation and logical reasoning

• Linear arrangements
  
• Circular arrangements
  
• Blood relation
  
• Directions
  
• Syllogism
  
• Bar chart
  
• Pie charts
  
• Tabular representations
  
• All the above topics are covered up in the CAT syllabus.
  

Hope this helps you!
For further help you feel free to contact!

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