During my preparation journey, I came across two kinds of people. For the first kind, the VARC section was a cakewalk and for the second, it was like entering a minefield. Unfortunately, I was in the second group.
Being someone who always wanted to work smart than hard, I talked to students and mentors to figure out some out-of-the-box tricks that would help me ace the section. In this article, I present to you the tips and tricks that emerged as a result of those conversations and helped me ace CAT VARC. So, without further adieu, let’s get down to business.
- Inside the examiner’s mindLet us begin from the beginning. How cool would it be if you knew exactly what the examiner was trying to test through the VARC paper? What is it that CAT wants to test via the VARC paper?Most of us already know the correct answer- how well we comprehend. But, why does CAT want to test this skill? For most aspirants, this might be a trickier question. The answer to this question holds the key to a completely new and enriching thought process.
CAT wants to test our comprehension skills because as management students and business leaders, we would need to read a lot and make sense of what we are reading. The CAT RCs are just a precursor of what follows if we crack the exam. This realization that preparing for the VARC section is no less than preparing for the MBA life inspired in me an enthusiasm that propelled me to ace the section. Put this realization to work for you too!
- Learn to walk before you can runThis tip deals with laying the foundation for acing RCs. Reading speed is a huge factor in CAT VARC. Everyone understands this and we try to run through any passage we see. In doing this, we forget a simple fact- we learned to walk before we learned to run.Here is a plan to increase your speed while tackling RCs.
- In the beginning, read 4 standard CAT RC passages every day at your own pace. - - After you finish reading each passage, try and answer the following questions.
What is the main idea of the passage?
What is the objective of the author?
How does the author achieve his objective?
Show your answers to your mentor or friend and tell them to check your answers. Do this for a couple of weeks.
- After a couple of weeks, repeat the same exercise as above. Only this time, record your reading time.
- Then, try to decrease your reading time by 10 seconds every week while getting most of your answers correct. Once you feel that you cannot do any better on time, stop. You have attained your optimum reading speed. - Make texting your allyLet’s be honest, most of us text a lot. While texting, we use all sorts of abbreviations, incorrect grammar, and what not to save time. Don’t do this. Include texting in your CAT preparation. Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? You might even be thinking whether this lockdown has driven me crazy. Let me show you how you can use texts to propel you towards acing VARC.
To start with, identify all those people who you talk to regularly and with whom you can text using English and not vernaculars. These people might be your colleagues, friends, or relatives. Once you have identified such people, make sure that you write grammatically correct and proper English sentences while texting them.
When you do this, you familiarise yourself with the language and feel at ease with the grammar questions that come in many MBA entrance exams. You never know when CAT decides to throw in a couple of grammar questions. So, it is better to stay prepared.
- Action cures fearNot all of us are equally comfortable with all topics. But, as many of you would know, CAT can throw at you a passage about almost any topic under the sun. So, having a chink in your armory is not okay.
I would reiterate something that's been said always - read a lot about anything and everything. But, being a recent aspirant, I know how boring it can be to read books or articles on topics you don’t like. So, I will let you in on a plan that I devised to incentivize myself to do this boring task.
Remember that scene from Chhichhore where everyone vowed to give up something they loved doing until they achieved something. Well, this plan is on similar lines. There is one thing all of us love doing. Identify what you love doing the most and then fix this constraint- you will do that activity or have that dish on weekends only if you have spent one hour reading passages on the topic you dislike every day on the weekdays.
Once you start indulging in what scares you now, the fear factor gradually fades and you become more and more comfortable.
- Accuracy is important. Even in VARCIn my opinion, maintaining good accuracy (at least above 85%) in VARC gives you an edge over others. This way you don’t have to hurry to maximize your attempts in the section. Because you don’t hurry and spend adequate time with questions you choose to attempt, you are less likely to make silly mistakes. Let me illustrate my point with an anecdote.
In CAT 2020, there were 4 passages and due to lack of time I left a complete 5 questions passage. I was distraught on doing so but to my surprise I got 19 correct out of the 21 attempted.
I hope this clears the picture for you. Try to maintain good accuracy in VARC also!
So, those were some of the tips and tricks that helped me to score 99.97 percentile in VARC in my first CAT attempt. I hope that they improve your VARC percentile too. Put them to use, believe in yourself, and stay safe.