WORD POWER
If you work on your verbal aptitude skills, you’ll gain an edge over the large number of math-focused MBA aspirants. Here’s a how-to guide and some sample questions
With the CAT drawing near, it is time for aspirants to streamline their preparation strategy. In the August 22 issue, we shared tips on how to tackle the data interpretation section. Here, we will describe how you can do the groundwork for the highscoring segment that is the verbal aptitude section. While students have adequate clarity about how to prepare for the quantitative, data interpretation and logical reasoning sections because of a designated syllabus and questions, preparation for the verbal section usually lacks structure and direction. Research suggest that the number of MBA aspirants, who are good at mathematics, is higher than those who are good in verbal. The CAT then essentially becomes a competition among math pros, vying for the best verbal scores. Therefore, if you can crack the verbal section, you will have an edge.
MCT
THE BROAD AREAS TESTED IN THIS SECTION ARE:
Reading comprehension Verbal logic and reasoning Grammar Vocabulary Approximately 50% of the questions in the verbal section are centered around reading comprehension. The remaining questions give equal weightage to other areas. 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 these different questions.READING SKILLS
To develop a healthy reading habit, earmark fifteen minutes every day to read a few pages of a book or e-book that you will enjoy. 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 that. To increase your reading speed, begin with something comprehensive like a newspaper and read it fairly fast. Ignore the loss of comprehension and concentrate on your speed. In a short while, your comprehension will start improving as will your reading speed. If you have improved your speed with easy text from, say, 250 words to 500 words per minute, with difficult text you can do 150 words to 200 words per minute. With practice, the speed at which you process text will improve. Improving Comprehension Comprehension of text is not so much related to speed, as to your concentration and proficiency in language (mastery of vocabulary and grammatical structures). Hence, it is necessary to work towards improving your vocabulary and your comfort level with complex sentence structures.VOCABULARY BUILDING
Vocabulary-building need not be tiresome. Remember, the functions of a word as an instrument of communication are: 1. to speak, 2. to write, 3. to think. To get quick results in vocabulary building, do not learn new words by rote; instead follow these techniques:To speak: Look up how the word is pronounced in a dictionary. This works, because if you know how a new word is pronounced, you will feel confident about it, use it while conversing and will not forget it easily. For example, the word chatoyant, which means — having a changeable twinkling lustre, is pronounced as \shuh-TOI-uhnt\.
To be confident about writing a word, you must know its spelling.
In order to retain the meaning of the word, look at the context in which the word occurs. Learn the word along with that context and remember it as a phrase. For example, do not remember ‘chatoyant’, remember ‘chatoyant silk’. In this way the word becomes clear to you and remains in your memory for a long time.
Try to read about the word itself — its root meaning, etymology, history etc. For example, read this information related to ‘chatoyant’. Origin: Chatoyant's poetic origin lies in the French chatoyer, ‘to gleam like a cat's eyes,’ from the French chat meaning ‘cat’. A casual reading of such details about the word will go a long way in making the word a part of your repertoire. Exam-specific learning Root lists, word lists, flashcards and books are useful in learning vocabulary for an exam. You must memorise as many words as possible from such sources, closer to the exam, everyday for a few hours. You must also solve as many vocabulary related
questions as possible. Study of grammar If you are good reader, the grammatical structure of a language is instinctively mastered without actually being able to distinguish between the subject and the object case of a pronoun. Hence continue your general reading of everything possible, as much as possible. Begin by learning the principles usually tested in the CAT and then solving related questions. Do not worry about accuracy initially. Learn backwards, that is, solve questions, make mistakes, and learn all the principles from the explanations to the questions.
VERBAL LOGIC SECTION
This section tests your comprehension and analytical skills specific to the given information or situation. It assesses your ability to reason, ignoring all prior knowledge, you may have about commonplace objects. Examples of verbal logic are the classical logical set theory questions. The data ‘All cats are dogs’ is analysed as ‘All Cs are Ds’, ignoring whatever one may know about cats and dogs. Learn the principles related to logic and then solve questions regularly. Once you get the knack of solving these questions, you need not practice them everyday. Just stay in touch.
VERBAL REASONING SECTION
Verbal reasoning requires comprehension of the data, as the data is generally understood in daily life and the ability to apply principles of reasoning to make decisions. A large variety of question types exist in verbal reasoning. The most structured ones are called critical reasoning questions. Other types are reading comprehension, paragraph completion, jumbled paragraphs, etc. All these types test your comprehension, analytical, reasoning, and decision-making skills. They are generally time-consuming and require active reading of the given data and its good comprehension. In all reasoning questions, ensure that you have understood the instructions clearly. Questions like paragraph jumbles need careful application of elementary reasoning. But, some other question like critical reasoning may require high-analysis, so practise accordingly.
In order to retain the meaning of the word, look at the context in which the word occurs. Learn the word along with that context and remember it as a phrase. For example, do not remember ‘chatoyant’, remember ‘chatoyant silk’. In this way the word becomes clear to you and remains in your memory for a long time.
Try to read about the word itself — its root meaning, etymology, history etc. For example, read this information related to ‘chatoyant’. Origin: Chatoyant's poetic origin lies in the French chatoyer, ‘to gleam like a cat's eyes,’ from the French chat meaning ‘cat’. A casual reading of such details about the word will go a long way in making the word a part of your repertoire. Exam-specific learning Root lists, word lists, flashcards and books are useful in learning vocabulary for an exam. You must memorise as many words as possible from such sources, closer to the exam, everyday for a few hours. You must also solve as many vocabulary related
questions as possible. Study of grammar If you are good reader, the grammatical structure of a language is instinctively mastered without actually being able to distinguish between the subject and the object case of a pronoun. Hence continue your general reading of everything possible, as much as possible. Begin by learning the principles usually tested in the CAT and then solving related questions. Do not worry about accuracy initially. Learn backwards, that is, solve questions, make mistakes, and learn all the principles from the explanations to the questions.
VERBAL LOGIC SECTION
This section tests your comprehension and analytical skills specific to the given information or situation. It assesses your ability to reason, ignoring all prior knowledge, you may have about commonplace objects. Examples of verbal logic are the classical logical set theory questions. The data ‘All cats are dogs’ is analysed as ‘All Cs are Ds’, ignoring whatever one may know about cats and dogs. Learn the principles related to logic and then solve questions regularly. Once you get the knack of solving these questions, you need not practice them everyday. Just stay in touch.
VERBAL REASONING SECTION
Verbal reasoning requires comprehension of the data, as the data is generally understood in daily life and the ability to apply principles of reasoning to make decisions. A large variety of question types exist in verbal reasoning. The most structured ones are called critical reasoning questions. Other types are reading comprehension, paragraph completion, jumbled paragraphs, etc. All these types test your comprehension, analytical, reasoning, and decision-making skills. They are generally time-consuming and require active reading of the given data and its good comprehension. In all reasoning questions, ensure that you have understood the instructions clearly. Questions like paragraph jumbles need careful application of elementary reasoning. But, some other question like critical reasoning may require high-analysis, so practise accordingly.
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