I’ve discussed the need to understand certain grammar concepts in CAT in order to do well. As you continue to study for CAT, make sure you focus on these specific grammar areas. Additionally, on any given question, CAT is often testing several of these concepts. Thus, as we teach in our CETKING classroom course, make sure you have a great strategy to keep all the moving parts organized. The following conceptual topics appear often on the test:
1. Verbs
CAT is often testing your ability to match up subject verb agreement. If you see a verb in the underlined portion of the sentence, make sure you ask yourself “to what subject is this verb referring” (note that more difficult questions have ambiguous subjects).
2. Pronouns
If you ever see a pronoun underlined in CAT, always ask yourself whether the pronoun unambiguously refers to the noun it is replacing. Additionally, ask yourself whether the pronoun refers correctly to the singular or plural noun.
3. Modifiers
Modifiers can be tricky. Note the following example: “I love you.” If we wanted to add the modifier “only” to this sentence we need to be careful where we place it. We can place it in several places:
“I love only you.” – Meaning that I don’t love anyone else but you. OR,
“I only love you.” – Meaning that I love you but I don’t like you much. OR.
“Only I love you.” – A quite depressing meaning – that no one but me loves you.
A modifier can severally change the meaning of a statement. In every competitive exam, always put the modifier next to the word that it modifies.
4. Parallelism & Comparisons
The CAT tests parallelism in several ways:
1) Make sure that if you have a list of entities, you always make the phrases parallel.
2) Additionally, if you are comparing items, you must make sure the forms are parallel as well as the concepts that you are comparing.
5. Style & Idioms
Here is the area that gives even the best test takers some concerns. Style and idiomatic usages CAT generally means using concise business language and commonly accepted words and phrases. I’ve met many individuals who identify themselves as grammar kings and queens – many of them have trouble with CAT style and idioms. While we can complain and argue about the virtues of competing styles, we are better severed if we simply learn and practice the specific CAT idioms and style that are tested.
These five topics are the extent that the CAT is testing your grammar. In general, while there are many things within each of these categories that could be tested, we want you to focus on looking for these five things in the underlined part of the question. Thinking about what to look for (instead of just hoping you hear the problem), is more than half the battle.
Good luck with sentence correction!
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