How To Improve Consistency In Verbal Section - Things That Helped Me Scored 99.9+ Twice In VA

In reality, the second question is the one that most students are concerned about. A handful of kids do well in verbal but only on rare occasions, and their results are typically inconsistent. Improving your reading abilities is the sure-fire way to eliminate difficulties in the Verbal part. You will perform well in the exam if you are a good reader. Why is it so important to read for the exam? Consider Reading Comprehension (RC) passages if you desire a direct link between reading and the test. Most other entrance examinations follow the same pattern as the CAT, which has 3 to 4 RC sections.

Furthermore, if you consider the whole CAT verbal portion, the majority of it contains information that is difficult to read. As a result, improving your reading abilities is a good idea. Isn't it true that it's easier said than done? Reading is most students' Achilles' heel, and the majority of students find it incredibly difficult to read or to stay focused when reading. Given the magnitude of the problem, it makes sense to examine it and come up with a solution.

The information in this post will assist you in overcoming reading difficulties. Let's have a look at some of the sources for past year's CAT RC passages before we get into the real advice. This list will assist you in determining the sort of information that will be on the test and will demonstrate the importance of developing a reading habit.

CAT Reading Comprehension Sources: Listed year-wise

Source CAT 2003:‘Financial story of our independence’ from the TOI column Swaminomics

Source CAT 2003:‘Will the Potato Take Over’ from a column in The Telegraph

Source CAT 2005:Extract on ‘Game Theory’ from the book ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ by Anatol Rapopert and Albert M. Chammah

Source CAT 2005: Extract from the book ‘Work, Postmodernism and Organization: A Critical Introduction’ by Philip H Hancock and Melissa Tylor

Source CAT 2005:‘Edwardian Summer’ written by Larry Elliot and taken from a column in The Guardian

Source CAT 2006: Extract from the book ‘Conjectures and Refutations’ by Karl Popper

Source CAT 2006:‘Communism may be dead, but clearly not dead enough’ written by Seumas Milne and taken from a column…

Source CAT 2006: Extract from the book ‘A Theory of Justice’ by John Rawl

Source CAT 2007: Extract from the book ‘Knowledge and Postmodernism in Historical Perspective’ by Joyce Appleby, Elizabeth Covington, David Hoyt and Michael Latham

Source CAT 2007: Extract from the book ‘Logological Investigations’ by Barry Sandywell

Source CAT 2007: Extract from the book ‘Guns, germs and steel: The Fates of Human Societies’ by Jared M.Diamond

Source CAT 2007: Extract from the book ‘Sociology: A Very Short Introduction’ by Steve Bruce

Source CAT 2008: Extract from the book ‘How to travel with a Salmon and other essays’ by Umberto Eco, Diane Sterling and William Weaver.

Source CAT 2008: Extract from the book ‘The Language Instinct’ by Steven Pinker

Source CAT 2008: Extract from the book ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to fail or succeed’ by Jared Diamond

Important Note: The list only includes RCs till CAT-2008, (when it was still conducted in the paper-pencil format). Though there has been a change in the length of passages when CAT went online (in 2009), the general nature and type of passages has remained similar. This also means that the extrapolations and inferences from the above sources continue to remain valid.

What have we learned from the previous year's experience? RC Sources CAT

The following are some of the major takeaways from the sources listed above:

1.Liberal arts disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, and psychology are heavily emphasised.

2. The majority of the locations indicated by the above sources are not read by the majority of us.

3. To be honest, the aforementioned places appear to be quite dull in nature at first glance.

Recommended For You: How I Achieved 99.29%ile In CAT 2020 Despite Weak VARC Ft. Sidra Nasir Khan, FMS

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Crucial Points to Help You Develop a Reading Habit

Now that you've gone over the list of texts that occur in CAT, it's time to focus on what you should be doing to improve your reading habit. Remember that reading does not come naturally to most individuals, and habit building takes time. The following four things can help you create a reading habit:

1. In general, you should not begin with things that you dislike and for which you have no prior reading experience. If you begin with a difficult topic (such as philosophy) and have never studied it before, you are likely to suffer. Instead, begin with a subject or area that you enjoy, since this will give you with the extra incentive you need to form a habit. Sports, business, fashion, economics, financial markets, and other topics of interest are all possibilities. When you begin to go through the accessible reading material, you will realise that there is excellent reading material for every discipline. Also, if you're starting with nonfiction disciplines like psychology or sociology, instead of books, you should start with blogs and articles.

2. The key to forming a new habit is to take it slowly at first. It's all too simple to get started with the most popular CAT books and then lose interest in the activity. Setting basic goals and building from there is a better approach to go about things. Start with 10 minutes of reading each day and gradually increase it by a few minutes each day. You'll have a decent reading habit in a few days.

3. Remember that reading should be an enjoyable experience rather than a chore. Being a better reader will provide you with abilities that will be considerably more useful in the long term. Enjoy the process and get a feeling of accomplishment everytime you finish anything by reading in pleasant surroundings such as book cafés or coffee shops. Nothing works better than a little self-aggrandizement.

4. When we read, we may do so half-heartedly at times. Our focus begins to wane, and reading becomes a tedious pastime. A few mental reminders might assist you in overcoming this fatigue:

• Remember why you're reading a particular item (novel, article, short storey etc).
• Aim to cross the finish line and feel a sense of accomplishment.
• If something is really dull at first, abandon it and go on to something else.
• Identify the author's primary argument and attack his weak areas while reading nonfiction. This ability, referred to as critical reading, will help you concentrate more when reading.
• Find a point of connection with the stories while reading fiction. We like stories those we can relate to the most. We relate to some character/idea in the tale and that idea/character is a part of our life, which is what association means.

The above-mentioned pointers will help you in developing your verbal skills. So what are you waiting for? Time to put these in practice.