How To Ensure Great Score In Verbal Ability

CAT gives equal importance to all sections. So, to score good in CAT one need to score good in Verbal Ability Section.To get a great in Verbal Ability Section, you need to approach your preparation strategically. You will also need to have a very solid plan of action with a clear timeline in mind. Below are the five steps you need to follow to ensure a killer CAT score! Step 1: Know where you stand: There is no point in attending a preparation program or practicing volumes of questions if you haven’t taken a full-length mock test. Doing this will ensure that you know exactly where you stand and the kind of weaknesses you have. This should be your starting point. Based on your mock score, have a plan that sets targets within specific time frame. But please keep your targets realistic. Step 2: Become Passionate about words: 50% of your Verbal ability tests vocabulary. This includes the Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions. There are primarily three things you need to know about these question types: 1.    They test words in context. 2. The words tested are rarely the kind you come across in everyday life. 3. The answer options tend to be very close to each other: this makes choosing between options very challenging. These factors make vocabulary a very important aspect of Verbal Reasoning, and building vocabulary meaningfully becomes essential. You’ll realize that just memorizing the definitions of a word alone is not going to help you. Rather, you must know every aspect of a word such as its contextual meaning and usage, the connotation it carries and the degree of negativity or positivity that it has in comparison to other similar words. Start building your vocabulary early. Step 3: Know what CAT expects: If you are planning to focus only on vocabulary and possibly practice a bit of reading comprehension from some online source, then be warned – you may be shocked by the score you get on the day of the test! Although Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension are important, you need to understand that the way CAT tests these abilities is quite different. It is, therefore, important that you practice these concepts. Step 4: Practice, Review, And Analyse: Practicing volumes of questions may not be effective if you do not follow up your practice with review and analysis. Remember to prioritize quality of practice over obsessing about quantity of practice. What does review and analysis mean? First, ensure that your practice-sessions are realistic. Either pick up 20 questions of a particular question type and solve under a time constraint. Second, once you’re done and you’ve checked the answers – analyse the following questions: 1. Those you didn’t know how to answer 2. Those you got wrong, because you were caught between two or more likely options 3. Those you guessed and got correct 4. Those you took too much time for (irrespective of whether you got them correct) Step 5: Manage Stress: The biggest variable that can affect your CAT score on the day of the actual test is stress! This can be induced by time pressure, performance anxiety or the sheer intensity of the test itself. Remember: It is not possible to avoid stress. What you need to do is to ‘get used’ to the kind of stress you are likely to face on the day of the exam. This you can achieve by taking full length practice tests and understanding the kind of challenges you face. Read – Improve – Score All The Best!!!