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How to prepare for Verbal Ability for CAT? Preparation Tips, Syllabus, Reference Books

Exam

Prachi Bhatia

Updated on 22nd September, 2023 , 3 min read

The CAT 2023 Exam is scheduled for November 26, 2023. Candidates must deliberately and methodically prepare for each segment. They must be equally prepared for each of the four portions of the Common Admission Test (CAT) in order to succeed. Also, candidates must decide where to start their preparation when it comes to verbal abilities. Here are some pointers to help you improve your verbal ability preparation. Making it a habit to read the newspaper each day will be the most helpful for your linguistic skills preparation. Aspirants can start their preparation with internet reading in addition to newspapers and academic literature.

Verbal Ability Section : Introduction

Let's examine the questions you might anticipate on verbal ability in the CAT 2023. There are essentially five different sorts of questions in the verbal ability section which are Critical Reasoning, Paragraph Forming (Para Jumbled Questions), Grammar, Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension.

How to Prepare for the Verbal Ability Section?

To achieve the highest possible score on the verbal ability section of the exam, use the tips listed below:

1. Read as much as you can

  • Your reading comprehension skills are also tested in the verbal ability part. According to recent years' patterns, around 16 of the 34 questions in the verbal part are of Reading Comprehension.
  • The reading comprehension exam measures a candidate's capacity to read, grasp, and fully comprehend the ideas offered in a paragraph. 
  • It also assesses your vocabulary to see whether you meet the requirements. Additionally, the CAT does not assess your passage-reading speed. 
  • Always take care not to skip the sections when reading them. It won't help you at all because you won't be able to better grasp the paragraph that way. 
  • Furthermore, you may miss some essential topics and end up answering the questions improperly. You may thus improve your reading comprehension skills by making reading a habit.

2. Observe the trap answer options

  • The CAT verbal ability component is renowned for having trap response choices that lower your score. What are possible trap answers? These are the response selections that the examiner has purposefully chosen to ensure that the majority of applicants choose them. T
  • hese seem to be the right response choices. Nevertheless, they are not. An alert reader won't be fooled by these trap response choices. 
  • However, if you exclude any important information from the paragraph, you could select this wrong response choice.

3. Do not try to attempt all questions 

You may comprehend it by looking at the CAT 2022 table provided below.

 

Percentiles

VARC Score

99

67

97

62

95

56

90

50

85

44

As you can see, you must properly answer about 22 questions in order to get the 99 percentile. A common misconception is that in order to do well on the verbal portion of the exam, you must attempt every question. You may do well in this area by accurately answering about 27 to 28 questions out of the total.

 

4. Improve Grammar and Vocabulary 

  • If your grammar is weak, it will be challenging for you to comprehend the phrases. Comprehending new information will be made more challenging by poor vocabulary. 
  • Always pay attention to the author's sentence structure and choice of terminology whether reading or practicing. 
  • It is advisable to keep a little notepad close at hand in which you may jot down the definitions, synonyms, and antonyms of any unfamiliar words you come across. 
  • You will be able to edit them whenever you want if you do it this way.

5. Master the art of selecting the right RC paragraphs

  • Some of the RCs you receive are difficult. They are composed in complicated phrases and have a limited number of viable responses. 
  • Such RCs should be avoided or saved until the very end. It might take a lot of time to initially try a challenging RC. 
  • You won't have much time left over for simpler RCs after that. You must start with simpler RCs, just as you should always aim to complete easier sets in LR-DI. 
  • By taking several mock exams, this talent may be cultivated. Never evaluate the complexity of an RC based on its length. Longer RCs are frequently the simpler ones.

Verbal Ability Syllabus

The following subjects are covered in the verbal ability syllabus for all MBA entrance tests. The following topics form the basis of the exam's question structure:

 

CAT Verbal Ability Syllabus

Spotting Errors

One Word Substitutes

Antonyms/Synonyms

Idioms and Phrases

Spellings

Change of Voice

Selecting Words

Change of Speech

Sentence Formation

Verbal Analogies

Ordering of Words

Articles

Sentence Correction

Prepositions

Ordering of Sentences

Adjectives

Paragraph Formation

Types of Pronouns

Closet Test

Types of Clauses

Comprehension

Subject-Verb Agreement

Preparation Books for Verbal Ability Section of CAT

The top books for studying for the CAT verbal ability curriculum are listed below. Candidates can develop a strong vocabulary and become accustomed to different sentence structures and usage by reading books.

 

Book Title

Author/Publisher

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for CAT

Nishit Sinha

High School Grammar and Composition

Wren and Martin

How to Prepare for Reading Comprehension and Verbal Ability for the CAT

Arun Sharma and Meenakshi Upadhyay

Word Power Made Easy

Normal Lewis 

Mastering the Verbal Ability for CAT

Ajay Singh

Also Check the links below for the best preparation of each section for CAT.

CAT Preparation Tips - Section Wise

Preparation Tips for Reading Comprehension for CAT

Preparation Tips for Data Interpretation for CAT

Preparation Tips for Logical Reasoning for CAT

Preparation Tips for Quantitative Aptitude for CAT

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Frequently Asked Questions

Which type of questions are included in Verbal Ability?

Verbal Ability tests usually consist of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) based on grammar topics including tenses, articles, nouns/pronouns, conjunctions, and subject-verb agreement, as well as questions on word meaning, one-word substitutions, fill-in-the-blanks, and parajumbles.

My English is weak. How early should I start VARC preparation?

Beginning with the early phases of exam preparation, start developing your English abilities. Beginning at least six to eight months before to the exam, spend at least one hour every day reading books and newspapers.

What are the main topics of Verbal Ability in CAT?

The main topics of Verbal Ability in CAT include Parajumbles, Sentence Completion, Cloze Tests to Synonyms, Antonyms, Analogies, Spellings, Words Often Confused and Odd Words.

How many Verbal Ability questions does CAT have?

CAT has about 8-12 Verbal Ability questions. The CAT question paper is dominated by Reading Comprehension. The RC passages of CAT are usually from philosophy, history, art & culture, etc.

What is a good score in VARC in CAT?

Out of 24 questions, if you are able to score 34-35 marks in VARC, it can considered as a very decent score and can fetch you 98+ percentile.

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