CAT 2013 Analysis: Question Paper pattern analysis for Verbal Section

Oct. 17, 2013 - PRLog -- CAT 2013 is off to a good start. According to IIMs and Prometric, there was no glitch reported in any centre across the country. MBAUniverse.com was the first media to give you in-depth coverage of exam pattern and difficulty level. Our story headlined ‘CAT 2013 Day 1: Quant tricky and Tough, Verbal easy’ (http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/7162/CAT-2013-Day-1) was published at 2.30PM on October 16. Now we present an in-depth analysis of the Verbal Ability section of CAT 2013, as per questions that appeared on Day 1, Slot 1. Reading this will prepare you better for your CAT 2013 paper.

Overall Analysis of Verbal Section:
The Verbal Ability questions were on Reading Comprehension, Para Jumble, Vocabulary, Error correction in paragraph, identifying the Out of Context sentences. According to MBAUniverse.com Verbal Ability expert Prof SK Agarwal, the paper was similar to last year’s pattern.

The Logical Reasoning questions were lengthy and tricky. One of the LR questions was similar to last year’s paper.

There were, although no surprise elements in the first session, there was repetition of last year’s surprises in parajumbles and Reading Comprehension passages.

Following topics were prominent in the Verbal section of the first session on first day-

Error Corrections
Verbal Ability section opened with a question on error correction in paragraph. There was question based on the understanding of core grammar.  The question had a paragraph, split in four sentences.  Candidates were required to pick out the sentences that were correct in terms of usage of grammar, spelling and punctuation, in terms of standard written English.

Reading Comprehension
There were three Reading Comprehension passage with 10 questions based on them.  The passages didn’t have heavy literature words and could be understood well.  One, out of the three passages was full of sarcasm and highlighted ‘the forgotten art of lying’.  Those who like reading George Bernard Shaw and have read his book ‘The Apple Cart’ might have got the answers to all the questions very quickly.  Questions were based on ‘Tone of the passage’; ‘Literal meaning of the phrase’; ‘Answer options that summarised the Main idea of the passage’.  Another passage was on the ‘Adverse effects and controlling the methane Gas which is 70 times  more powerful than carbon dioxide, in the arctic region ; the green house effects of this gas – its observation, measurement and control’.  The passage was research based and quite informative

Jumbled paragraph
Three paragraphs with jumbled sentences appeared in the examination. The surprise of CAT 2012 was repeated and one question to pick out the ‘Out of context sentence’ again found the place in parajumbles, though there was no fresh surprise.

Vocabulary usage
There were four questions based on contextual vocabulary usage.  Two of them required the candidates to fill in the blanks with the appropriate pair of words.  Other two questions were formed with one key word in each question which was used in four different ways in four sentences and the candidates were asked to pick out the incorrect usage.

Last sentence of paragraph
Three such questions appeared in this section.  Each question had a paragraph, the last sentence of which was deleted.  Candidates had to find out the most appropriate answer options that would best place as the last sentence of paragraph.  The trick was to opt for the sentence that should conclude the paragraph and should not take the thought to any further discussion.

CAT 2013 in next few days
No major change in type and style of questions is expected in CAT 2013.  Candidates, if work in the right direction will get a substantial improvement in their percentile.

Tips for the candidates
MBAUniverse.com published the most relevant articles, giving the clue to the CAT aspirants on surprising and anticipated elements.  CAT aspirants, going to take the test in forthcoming days should go through the following  ‘How to crack surprise questions in Verbal section for CAT 2013 (http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/7137/)’  ;  types and tricks to solve CAT questions in Logical Reasoning (http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/7139/)  ;  Error correction in paragraphs and sentences (http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/7142/verbal-ability...);  Tips to solve 6  Vocabulary questions (http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/7144/Vocabulary-questions-in-CAT-2013)  ; and How to score more in Reading Comprehension (http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/7151/How-to-score-more-in-RC) . They may prove to be of great help to the aspirants on preparation strategy during the next few days of their CAT examination.