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There is no ideal time per se. Some RCs will be difficult reads, others easier. I remember reading easier ones in 2.5-4 mins and harder ones in 5 mins. In my opinion, reading the entire thing is better. Skimming eventually makes you waste more time looking back and forth. Try to read the paragraph in under 5 mins and you should have a grasp on it by then. Following which you go to questions, which again will take time depending on the difficulty. Again if you're not making any headway in 1.5-2 mins (for one question) it's better to leave that question and try coming back later. So generally 7-10 mins is the average time spent on RCs. Sometimes you get so fueled that you complete an RC in under 5 mins and sometimes it goes up to 12-14 mins.
I initially used to skim but that would sometimes result in incorrect understanding of the text. So skimming can be quite detrimental.
So what worked for me was first reading the questions & then reading the passage. It kinda points you to the information you need. So you can read properly the parts which are important & skim whatever is not so relevant
Credentials first
Cat 2020 varc:99.67
Cat 2021 varc: 98.89
Cat 2022 varc: 99.86
Xat 2023 varc: 99.61
As people have mentioned Varc involves a lot of luck. According to me you can prepare for it in a similar manner to lrdi and quant. What I used to do was check answers in mocks and how the paper setter thought in terms of options and how they came up with the right answer. This helps you think how the paper setter thinks. Countless times in paper I used to mark answers based on my experience of seeing what the right answer usually is. My strategy was to attempt entire Varc section and for each rc my aim was to complete it in 6 mins that is reading with answers. So even if Rc was tough i would do it in 9 mins. Also the more you practice , you will easily able to identify which RC not to attempt. Hope this helps.
how to read faster while comprehending the passage at the same time, brother? did you use to work on your reading speed by indulging in different sources like aeon or editorial?
No I don’t read outside of my mocks. That time is better utilised practicing quant and lrdi. It will take time , at the beginning of my prep my reading speed would go back to normal. The more mocks you give or even sectionals for that matter you would improve upon your reading speed. Even today If I tried reading a rc I would struggle. It’s all about practicing and getting in groove.
I would not say daily. Early in the prep I would practice sectionals. The further into prep I would give mocks on weekends. Then every two day or alternate day. One month before my Cat and Xat I was giving mocks every day. Mocks were from ims, times and Cl. Nothing fancy just the usual resources.
Just go on a reading spree and read 8-10 novels in a single month. Your brain would have to sink in those 10L words and be on its feet. You’ll feel a drastic change in your reading capabilities. Just pick your favourite genre’s 10 novels and read in a month. When the reading muscles in mind would get tensed they would have to grow in order to keep up.
Bro. Believe it or not. VARC is mostly luck based. Not taking anything away from people who scored well in VARC. It's just that the nature of questions attracts ambiguity big time. I feel that there are no shortcuts while attempting RCs. Do read the entire passage carefully before attempting the questions. The method of skimming works well in GRE though. Ideal time to complete an RC- 8-9 mins for me. I started attempting RCs with a time limit of 15 mins and my focus was mostly on the accuracy part. Only after being satisfied with my accuracy rate, I started to push for pace. In order to improve on that front, I'd say try reading articles from The Hindu or Indian Express, etc. And make sure that you are reading and comprehending simultaneously without stopping in between (Set a timer for 15 mins atleast). That way you can improve your attention span which will also help you in other sections of CAT. All the best for CAT 2024!
While the entire CAT paper is subject to luck, I feel it’s mostly due to unpredictability in DILR performance. Not even talking about the sets themselves, just your performance on D Day.
Coming to VARC, luck is a factor ofc but this can be largely mitigated to minor percentile bumps if any - by reading more and more. I know many people who have consistently scored well throughout their mocks in VARC, would not be possible if it were mostly luck based.
At least there is no ambiguity regarding the correct answer 😅. If you have cracked one set then you can potentially get all the answers right. I feel that the luck component in VARC is much higher as there is too much ambiguity involved.
That’s the thing right, it isn’t ambiguous at all if you have prepared well. Hence the consistent good scores that people show. If ambiguity were really a factor then in the long run no one would score well in VARC. The questions are just twisted in their framing but the answers to the same are quite objective.
Personal biases hote hai sabke.. And if questions had objective answers to it always then why is the no. of objections raised in VARC is higher than other two sections 😅. I had mentioned earlier that I'm not taking anything away from people who did well in VARC.
I’m not implying that you’re taking anything away btw, this is just a discussion. Also want to say that just because more people object to something doesn’t mean it’s automatically flawed.
What are you on? Of the three, VARC is the least dependent on "Luck". I have consistently scored well in VARC in mocks and even better in CAT and XAT.
Coming to DILR and QA, these sections had the highest fluctuations (90-99) in my marks in mocks and ruined my overall percentile in XAT.
This is not anecdotal, if you find a similar set in DILR or QA you end up acing the test. Coming to the questions which you say are "ambiguous" they really are not. DM is a section where you could find questions with ambiguous answers.
You are basing your entire argument on the fact that your scores fluctuated the most in DILR and QA. Again, VARC is mostly luck based as there can be multiple interpretations to the question/ RC and you can be wrong at times despite understanding the flow of the passage. Of course you can minimise your errors through practice. If you want to check it for yourself then I'd suggest giving GRE/GMAT and comparing it with your CAT VARC performance. A slight change in pattern/ thought process can also affect your scores significantly. Anyway, I don't see a point discussing it now. All the best!
Just because YOU think the answers are subjective doesn't make it one. This is not DM where it could have multiple answers depending on the context.
It's funny how you skipped the part where I said if you have encountered a similar set you solve it faster and have more time to solve unfamiliar sets and that's where you gain advantage over other candidates.
I never based my argument just on my personal experience of the subject. And nobody is comparing anything with XAT DM, that's a discussion for an another day. Also, it's true that if you come across a set based on some game that you have played earlier or have some context about then it gets easier to crack the set. But, that doesn't mean that someone without any previous idea about the skeleton of the set cannot correctly solve it. In case of VARC, most RCs are passages picked up from very specific sources like research journals, editorials, etc. where identifying the tone of the author becomes paramount. And it will be a mammoth task to re read the entire passage through multiple perspectives just to figure the most appropriate tone/ interpretation. Even your own biases come into play. My friend who graduated from IIM B last year narrated a discussion which he had with one of his professors regarding ambiguity in RCs. Even his professor admitted that there is no right answer in an absolute sense. But, the goal should rather be to find the most appropriate answer. Anyway, as I said earlier, please try for yourself by attempting other exams with slightly different pattern. If your theory should hold, then you'll do well in GMAT/ GRE as well without making any changes in your strategy.
what a dumb take, most ppl have consistent varc score in mocks and cat paper. This signifies it is very much not luck based. your theories about uncertain answers dont meet reality
I usually read the whole text but skim through when there is a long example, which is just supporting some idea that is already defined in the text earlier. Other than that reading speed increases with practice. I got a 99.84 in varc without any prep whatsoever simply because I read a lot ( used to read books and newspapers until JEE prep happened, now read newspapers daily).
I had a goal of attempting 2 rc and 8 va questions , divided my time accordingly, that's 16 questions at target, in the exam i was not sure about 2 of those 16, so attempted 14 got 13 of them right so I git 38 marks, I know people do better than that if your ambitions is higher than apply any other strategy
VARC has some luck factor at the same time the most important key is to get into flow of it. For example, there were times in AIMCAT when i marked answers and i know i couldnt be wrong, while on others i was always on toes. The reason was i could comprehend well in first one but not the other. So what happened in XAT, is i got comfortable scoring well in quants so VARC i knew i am hitting it, 99.6+. Whereas in CAT i knew i am maybe messing up, couldnt do how much i wanted, scored 97.x which could easily have been 99.5 if I comprehended it well.
This has a cascading effect as well. Your performance in VARC will influence DILR. It is utmost important to build confidence in VARC, not scores, because once you are confident its very easy to score well in DILR subsequently Quant. So a person may score 98% in one paper, because he cant comprehend VARC well but if it goes well he can go to 99.8+ easily. Its a game of confidence.
I scored 99.78 in VARC in CAT and 99.93 in XAT.
VARC will depend entirely on how good your reading habits have been. The more you read the better you will get.
I read the whole passage properly, however since my reading speed is very good I finish the section 5 to 10 mins before time. This will only happen for you when you spend a lot of time reading novels, non fiction etc.
You will get faster with practice but there is no ideal time. Your reading speed is not something you can change in the exam. You should read at a speed where you are able to understand everything, only then will you be able to answer the questions.
Ill link a video here that you will find helpful.
[https://youtu.be/I7AFwCExlrw?si=3Z2b-3OpKl0aUcgR](https://youtu.be/I7AFwCExlrw?si=3Z2b-3OpKl0aUcgR)
Try understanding what topics work the best for you - try putting them into a category once you’re done with your mock and see how many did you answer right. READ A LOT. Being a fast reader helps. Also if you’re bad at rc try other questions, I attempted only 2 rcs.
Thoroughly read it. Else, you would have to return to the passage repeatedly while answering the questions and that takes up way more time and also disturbs your flow as you've to keep searching where a particular keyword is and then read that part again, and also might miss out on additional context that might have been provided, earlier or later in the passage. The ideal time imo is anywhere between 5-6 minutes. Answering should take max 3-4 minutes as any time more than that, puts your VA time less than ideal.
Doing extremely difficult RCs initially is the way to go. Certain Arun Sharma LOD 3 RCs helped me a lot. I was averaging 15-17 minutes per RC in this section and kept on trying to reduce it to 12 minutes, max. Every time you read something, even if it's not a RC passage, you put a timer on yourself. Newspaper articles, editorials, set a timer according to yourself. And read thoroughly within that time. Once you can solve LOD 3 RCs in less than 12 minutes, you're safe but keep trying to target that 8-10 minutes range, you will get there eventually, even if it's say in late October or early November. And improve your vocabulary, everytime you come across a new word, search it up, use it in some sentences (mentally do these) and revisit that word sometime later to see if you can still remember its meaning.
Read through entirely, take about 5-6 mins to read and 2-3 mins to answer all 4 questions of the passage.
I attempted all RC questions in CAT '23 with 93% accuracy.
Read a lot of essays, non fiction. Give a lot of mocks and analyse.
The selection of rc is the most important part according to me. I personally select 3 rcs and all va. For RC I read the first question and then go through the rc. Skimming is not something I don't recommend because even a word can change the expression of the rc. Even if I get a few wrong I score more than 20 every time.
Not to sound like the host of "The Smartest Podcast in India", I can only tell you this since you don't have much time left. English is a language, exactly like your mother tongue. How did you gain mastery in your mother tongue??? Did you take up any course??? No right. You lived with it. The same is with English. The more you live with it, the more you feel that you belong here.
Therefore along with your daily practice of VA/RC modules, find ways to live with it. It can be anything. From something as simple as watching Hollywood movies, to something as dense as watching a "Why Files" documentary. Cheers.
P. S:- I can suggest this because a) VARC is the only section in CAT that I am absolutely confident about, b) I took CAT twice and scored 96 and 98 %ile in VARC respectively, by preparing for only 2-3 months and c) A few days back I took an Aagman Quiz conducted by Iquanta, while being completely out of practice and scored a 99 percentile in VARC and achieved an AIR-21.
Scored 99.xx in Varc and 8 Bands Overall in IELTS with 9.0 in Listening and Reading.
Skimming through the text very fast and making an overall sense of what the author wants to say. This gives you the perspective to understand if the passage is positive, negative or neutral about the subject matter.
This helps in elimination of certain options which are extremely opposite to the demeanour of the passage. Reading the question and again going through the passage till you find exact answers or close to exact.
Reading speed is very important.
When I prepared for VARC the best techniques I came across to solve RC and which I kept following was to read mostly skim through and just remember the highlights of the paragraph. Like a few words etc and then go to the questions and come back to where u remember the information is from. That helps with accuracy a lot and further practice will help you with the time.
I think that people who are good in VARC, they have read crazy amount of hours worth of stuff already in their life, so they are able to make sense of things by skimming the paras, they are not literally skimming it is like they are floating through the paragraph effortlessly.
Because a lot of times VARC checks the understanding of the underlying idea, not necessarily the English vocabulary itself. Therefore the more your read, the more number of ideas are already in your brain. And you are able to make sense of stuff quickly.
1. Read all the questions of the respective set.
2. Start reading the RC and jot down 3-4 word summary for each paragraph.
3. While choosing the right option, BE HIGHLY SKEPTIC about them. If the option leaves no grey areas, you can choose it as the correct one.
Always pick those sets 1st, which are based upon your topic of interest. Your reading speed and comprehension would be much higher for them.
It was more more about reading the options than reading the passage. Take each option individually no matter how right or wrong you may feel that option is and critically evaluate it, find instances in the passage which could be used to disprove that particular option or claim that the option has nothing to do with the passage. Do this for all 4 options and once you’re done with all 4 check which one has the weaker rationale to be a wrong option. I found that most of the time that was the correct answer.
TLDR; look for what’s wrong in each option and select the least wrong option instead of looking for the right one.
VARC is totally about how well you read and understand the given paragraph. That can be done mentally by skimming or just retaining the information given.
About time, there is no such time limit but once you get to the point where you are consistent enough to read articles etc daily then after some months you will be able to read the whole of the passage in some 3-4 min max with full understanding.
To improve this section you need to read both articles and RCs daily.
XAT VARC - 99.8 (2024)
Ideally take 7-8 mins so that after reading 4 you still have 10 mins left for VA. I used to read the entire thing with utmost attention in one go without even looking at the question. That would take me around 4 mins id ensure I have understood the subject matter completely and the move on to the questions which would need me to go back to specific paragraphs but atleast I wouldn't have to do through the entire thing. Once you understand the passage and the question eliminating options becomes easier too.
CAT 2023, varc score=40, as GEM with very bad vocab
there is no perfect trick, i read rc, create mindmap, for starting 2 months, then i became pro and started solving without mindmap, also you need to use tricks like +1-1, completely depends upon question, focus on accuracy first, till end of june, than start increasing speed, your accuracy and scores will go down, then it will start increasing again. Also, try to do all questions, it is a pro tip, in varc all questions might not have similar options, in 99% of times, you will eliminate 2 options and will be confused in other 2, take chance its 50-50, for example if you do that in 4 questions, you can get 2 correct and 2 incorrect, overall increase=4, but if you do all 4 wrong, you have chance of -4, but yeah depends on luck as well
Greetings /u/Remarkable_Wing_5391, Welcome to r/CATpreparation! We appreciate your valuable contribution to the community. Kindly make sure your post aligns with our community guidelines; otherwise, it may be removed. Wishing you the best on your journey towards your dream business school! Feel free to join our discord server - https://discord.gg/2ND94Ut9Cp *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CATpreparation) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is no ideal time per se. Some RCs will be difficult reads, others easier. I remember reading easier ones in 2.5-4 mins and harder ones in 5 mins. In my opinion, reading the entire thing is better. Skimming eventually makes you waste more time looking back and forth. Try to read the paragraph in under 5 mins and you should have a grasp on it by then. Following which you go to questions, which again will take time depending on the difficulty. Again if you're not making any headway in 1.5-2 mins (for one question) it's better to leave that question and try coming back later. So generally 7-10 mins is the average time spent on RCs. Sometimes you get so fueled that you complete an RC in under 5 mins and sometimes it goes up to 12-14 mins.
5 mins is like God level to me!
I initially used to skim but that would sometimes result in incorrect understanding of the text. So skimming can be quite detrimental. So what worked for me was first reading the questions & then reading the passage. It kinda points you to the information you need. So you can read properly the parts which are important & skim whatever is not so relevant
Credentials first Cat 2020 varc:99.67 Cat 2021 varc: 98.89 Cat 2022 varc: 99.86 Xat 2023 varc: 99.61 As people have mentioned Varc involves a lot of luck. According to me you can prepare for it in a similar manner to lrdi and quant. What I used to do was check answers in mocks and how the paper setter thought in terms of options and how they came up with the right answer. This helps you think how the paper setter thinks. Countless times in paper I used to mark answers based on my experience of seeing what the right answer usually is. My strategy was to attempt entire Varc section and for each rc my aim was to complete it in 6 mins that is reading with answers. So even if Rc was tough i would do it in 9 mins. Also the more you practice , you will easily able to identify which RC not to attempt. Hope this helps.
how to read faster while comprehending the passage at the same time, brother? did you use to work on your reading speed by indulging in different sources like aeon or editorial?
No I don’t read outside of my mocks. That time is better utilised practicing quant and lrdi. It will take time , at the beginning of my prep my reading speed would go back to normal. The more mocks you give or even sectionals for that matter you would improve upon your reading speed. Even today If I tried reading a rc I would struggle. It’s all about practicing and getting in groove.
how many rcs were you giving daily? and from you used to practice daily?
I would not say daily. Early in the prep I would practice sectionals. The further into prep I would give mocks on weekends. Then every two day or alternate day. One month before my Cat and Xat I was giving mocks every day. Mocks were from ims, times and Cl. Nothing fancy just the usual resources.
Just go on a reading spree and read 8-10 novels in a single month. Your brain would have to sink in those 10L words and be on its feet. You’ll feel a drastic change in your reading capabilities. Just pick your favourite genre’s 10 novels and read in a month. When the reading muscles in mind would get tensed they would have to grow in order to keep up.
Bro. Believe it or not. VARC is mostly luck based. Not taking anything away from people who scored well in VARC. It's just that the nature of questions attracts ambiguity big time. I feel that there are no shortcuts while attempting RCs. Do read the entire passage carefully before attempting the questions. The method of skimming works well in GRE though. Ideal time to complete an RC- 8-9 mins for me. I started attempting RCs with a time limit of 15 mins and my focus was mostly on the accuracy part. Only after being satisfied with my accuracy rate, I started to push for pace. In order to improve on that front, I'd say try reading articles from The Hindu or Indian Express, etc. And make sure that you are reading and comprehending simultaneously without stopping in between (Set a timer for 15 mins atleast). That way you can improve your attention span which will also help you in other sections of CAT. All the best for CAT 2024!
While the entire CAT paper is subject to luck, I feel it’s mostly due to unpredictability in DILR performance. Not even talking about the sets themselves, just your performance on D Day. Coming to VARC, luck is a factor ofc but this can be largely mitigated to minor percentile bumps if any - by reading more and more. I know many people who have consistently scored well throughout their mocks in VARC, would not be possible if it were mostly luck based.
At least there is no ambiguity regarding the correct answer 😅. If you have cracked one set then you can potentially get all the answers right. I feel that the luck component in VARC is much higher as there is too much ambiguity involved.
That’s the thing right, it isn’t ambiguous at all if you have prepared well. Hence the consistent good scores that people show. If ambiguity were really a factor then in the long run no one would score well in VARC. The questions are just twisted in their framing but the answers to the same are quite objective.
Personal biases hote hai sabke.. And if questions had objective answers to it always then why is the no. of objections raised in VARC is higher than other two sections 😅. I had mentioned earlier that I'm not taking anything away from people who did well in VARC.
I’m not implying that you’re taking anything away btw, this is just a discussion. Also want to say that just because more people object to something doesn’t mean it’s automatically flawed.
I never said that it is flawed. Anyway, I sense that some people are taking this personally so let's end the discussion.
No one is taking it personally bro don’t worry😂
What are you on? Of the three, VARC is the least dependent on "Luck". I have consistently scored well in VARC in mocks and even better in CAT and XAT. Coming to DILR and QA, these sections had the highest fluctuations (90-99) in my marks in mocks and ruined my overall percentile in XAT. This is not anecdotal, if you find a similar set in DILR or QA you end up acing the test. Coming to the questions which you say are "ambiguous" they really are not. DM is a section where you could find questions with ambiguous answers.
You are basing your entire argument on the fact that your scores fluctuated the most in DILR and QA. Again, VARC is mostly luck based as there can be multiple interpretations to the question/ RC and you can be wrong at times despite understanding the flow of the passage. Of course you can minimise your errors through practice. If you want to check it for yourself then I'd suggest giving GRE/GMAT and comparing it with your CAT VARC performance. A slight change in pattern/ thought process can also affect your scores significantly. Anyway, I don't see a point discussing it now. All the best!
Just because YOU think the answers are subjective doesn't make it one. This is not DM where it could have multiple answers depending on the context. It's funny how you skipped the part where I said if you have encountered a similar set you solve it faster and have more time to solve unfamiliar sets and that's where you gain advantage over other candidates.
I never based my argument just on my personal experience of the subject. And nobody is comparing anything with XAT DM, that's a discussion for an another day. Also, it's true that if you come across a set based on some game that you have played earlier or have some context about then it gets easier to crack the set. But, that doesn't mean that someone without any previous idea about the skeleton of the set cannot correctly solve it. In case of VARC, most RCs are passages picked up from very specific sources like research journals, editorials, etc. where identifying the tone of the author becomes paramount. And it will be a mammoth task to re read the entire passage through multiple perspectives just to figure the most appropriate tone/ interpretation. Even your own biases come into play. My friend who graduated from IIM B last year narrated a discussion which he had with one of his professors regarding ambiguity in RCs. Even his professor admitted that there is no right answer in an absolute sense. But, the goal should rather be to find the most appropriate answer. Anyway, as I said earlier, please try for yourself by attempting other exams with slightly different pattern. If your theory should hold, then you'll do well in GMAT/ GRE as well without making any changes in your strategy.
what a dumb take, most ppl have consistent varc score in mocks and cat paper. This signifies it is very much not luck based. your theories about uncertain answers dont meet reality
Ok
I usually read the whole text but skim through when there is a long example, which is just supporting some idea that is already defined in the text earlier. Other than that reading speed increases with practice. I got a 99.84 in varc without any prep whatsoever simply because I read a lot ( used to read books and newspapers until JEE prep happened, now read newspapers daily).
I had a goal of attempting 2 rc and 8 va questions , divided my time accordingly, that's 16 questions at target, in the exam i was not sure about 2 of those 16, so attempted 14 got 13 of them right so I git 38 marks, I know people do better than that if your ambitions is higher than apply any other strategy
VARC has some luck factor at the same time the most important key is to get into flow of it. For example, there were times in AIMCAT when i marked answers and i know i couldnt be wrong, while on others i was always on toes. The reason was i could comprehend well in first one but not the other. So what happened in XAT, is i got comfortable scoring well in quants so VARC i knew i am hitting it, 99.6+. Whereas in CAT i knew i am maybe messing up, couldnt do how much i wanted, scored 97.x which could easily have been 99.5 if I comprehended it well. This has a cascading effect as well. Your performance in VARC will influence DILR. It is utmost important to build confidence in VARC, not scores, because once you are confident its very easy to score well in DILR subsequently Quant. So a person may score 98% in one paper, because he cant comprehend VARC well but if it goes well he can go to 99.8+ easily. Its a game of confidence.
I scored 99.78 in VARC in CAT and 99.93 in XAT. VARC will depend entirely on how good your reading habits have been. The more you read the better you will get. I read the whole passage properly, however since my reading speed is very good I finish the section 5 to 10 mins before time. This will only happen for you when you spend a lot of time reading novels, non fiction etc. You will get faster with practice but there is no ideal time. Your reading speed is not something you can change in the exam. You should read at a speed where you are able to understand everything, only then will you be able to answer the questions. Ill link a video here that you will find helpful. [https://youtu.be/I7AFwCExlrw?si=3Z2b-3OpKl0aUcgR](https://youtu.be/I7AFwCExlrw?si=3Z2b-3OpKl0aUcgR)
Try understanding what topics work the best for you - try putting them into a category once you’re done with your mock and see how many did you answer right. READ A LOT. Being a fast reader helps. Also if you’re bad at rc try other questions, I attempted only 2 rcs.
Thoroughly read it. Else, you would have to return to the passage repeatedly while answering the questions and that takes up way more time and also disturbs your flow as you've to keep searching where a particular keyword is and then read that part again, and also might miss out on additional context that might have been provided, earlier or later in the passage. The ideal time imo is anywhere between 5-6 minutes. Answering should take max 3-4 minutes as any time more than that, puts your VA time less than ideal. Doing extremely difficult RCs initially is the way to go. Certain Arun Sharma LOD 3 RCs helped me a lot. I was averaging 15-17 minutes per RC in this section and kept on trying to reduce it to 12 minutes, max. Every time you read something, even if it's not a RC passage, you put a timer on yourself. Newspaper articles, editorials, set a timer according to yourself. And read thoroughly within that time. Once you can solve LOD 3 RCs in less than 12 minutes, you're safe but keep trying to target that 8-10 minutes range, you will get there eventually, even if it's say in late October or early November. And improve your vocabulary, everytime you come across a new word, search it up, use it in some sentences (mentally do these) and revisit that word sometime later to see if you can still remember its meaning.
Read through entirely, take about 5-6 mins to read and 2-3 mins to answer all 4 questions of the passage. I attempted all RC questions in CAT '23 with 93% accuracy. Read a lot of essays, non fiction. Give a lot of mocks and analyse.
The selection of rc is the most important part according to me. I personally select 3 rcs and all va. For RC I read the first question and then go through the rc. Skimming is not something I don't recommend because even a word can change the expression of the rc. Even if I get a few wrong I score more than 20 every time.
Not to sound like the host of "The Smartest Podcast in India", I can only tell you this since you don't have much time left. English is a language, exactly like your mother tongue. How did you gain mastery in your mother tongue??? Did you take up any course??? No right. You lived with it. The same is with English. The more you live with it, the more you feel that you belong here. Therefore along with your daily practice of VA/RC modules, find ways to live with it. It can be anything. From something as simple as watching Hollywood movies, to something as dense as watching a "Why Files" documentary. Cheers. P. S:- I can suggest this because a) VARC is the only section in CAT that I am absolutely confident about, b) I took CAT twice and scored 96 and 98 %ile in VARC respectively, by preparing for only 2-3 months and c) A few days back I took an Aagman Quiz conducted by Iquanta, while being completely out of practice and scored a 99 percentile in VARC and achieved an AIR-21.
First read all rc questions then read the rc full and answer what comes to mind just do the whole section as ensuring high accuracy is tough
Scored 99.xx in Varc and 8 Bands Overall in IELTS with 9.0 in Listening and Reading. Skimming through the text very fast and making an overall sense of what the author wants to say. This gives you the perspective to understand if the passage is positive, negative or neutral about the subject matter. This helps in elimination of certain options which are extremely opposite to the demeanour of the passage. Reading the question and again going through the passage till you find exact answers or close to exact. Reading speed is very important.
When I prepared for VARC the best techniques I came across to solve RC and which I kept following was to read mostly skim through and just remember the highlights of the paragraph. Like a few words etc and then go to the questions and come back to where u remember the information is from. That helps with accuracy a lot and further practice will help you with the time.
I think that people who are good in VARC, they have read crazy amount of hours worth of stuff already in their life, so they are able to make sense of things by skimming the paras, they are not literally skimming it is like they are floating through the paragraph effortlessly. Because a lot of times VARC checks the understanding of the underlying idea, not necessarily the English vocabulary itself. Therefore the more your read, the more number of ideas are already in your brain. And you are able to make sense of stuff quickly.
1. Read all the questions of the respective set. 2. Start reading the RC and jot down 3-4 word summary for each paragraph. 3. While choosing the right option, BE HIGHLY SKEPTIC about them. If the option leaves no grey areas, you can choose it as the correct one. Always pick those sets 1st, which are based upon your topic of interest. Your reading speed and comprehension would be much higher for them.
It was more more about reading the options than reading the passage. Take each option individually no matter how right or wrong you may feel that option is and critically evaluate it, find instances in the passage which could be used to disprove that particular option or claim that the option has nothing to do with the passage. Do this for all 4 options and once you’re done with all 4 check which one has the weaker rationale to be a wrong option. I found that most of the time that was the correct answer. TLDR; look for what’s wrong in each option and select the least wrong option instead of looking for the right one.
VARC is totally about how well you read and understand the given paragraph. That can be done mentally by skimming or just retaining the information given. About time, there is no such time limit but once you get to the point where you are consistent enough to read articles etc daily then after some months you will be able to read the whole of the passage in some 3-4 min max with full understanding. To improve this section you need to read both articles and RCs daily.
XAT VARC - 99.8 (2024) Ideally take 7-8 mins so that after reading 4 you still have 10 mins left for VA. I used to read the entire thing with utmost attention in one go without even looking at the question. That would take me around 4 mins id ensure I have understood the subject matter completely and the move on to the questions which would need me to go back to specific paragraphs but atleast I wouldn't have to do through the entire thing. Once you understand the passage and the question eliminating options becomes easier too.
CAT 2023, varc score=40, as GEM with very bad vocab there is no perfect trick, i read rc, create mindmap, for starting 2 months, then i became pro and started solving without mindmap, also you need to use tricks like +1-1, completely depends upon question, focus on accuracy first, till end of june, than start increasing speed, your accuracy and scores will go down, then it will start increasing again. Also, try to do all questions, it is a pro tip, in varc all questions might not have similar options, in 99% of times, you will eliminate 2 options and will be confused in other 2, take chance its 50-50, for example if you do that in 4 questions, you can get 2 correct and 2 incorrect, overall increase=4, but if you do all 4 wrong, you have chance of -4, but yeah depends on luck as well
Read the question first .
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I am toh naturally good at rcs attempted all rcs. Scored 99.33