Verbal ability and reasoning accounts for half of the verbal section
A typical 50 marks section of verbal comprises Verbal ability and reasoning
section and the Reading Comprehension section. Verbal ability accounts for about
25 to 30 marks questions in the verbal section and the reamining 20 to 25 marks
questions are Reading comprehension questions.
In CAT 2004 there were 0.5, 1 and 2 marks questions in the verbal section and in
CAT 2005 there were 1 mark and 2 marks questions in the verbal section.
However, more recently in CAT 2006 only 10 out of the 25 questions in the verbal
section was from verbal ability and reasoning.
The questions that typically appear in the verbal section can be classified in
one of the following types
Vocabulary Based
Questions based on testing one's vocabulary could be plain
vanilla "synonym - antonym" questions as it appeared in CAT
2001, CAT 2002. Alternatively, the questions on vocabulary may
appear as fill in the blank with the appropriate word as it
appeared in the 0.5 marks section of CAT 2004 or as part of the
2 marks section in CAT 2005.
There have been interesting variations to this question as in
CAT 2001 and CAT 2002 where a simple word was given. Four
alternate usages for the word was given and four different
shades of meaning for the word was given. One had to match the
usage with the appropriate meaning. A sample of such a question
is given if you follow the link at the bottom of the page.
However, please note that the emphasis on vocabulary has been on
the decline and the need to memorize meanings of words such as
"pleonasm" or "pterodactyl" is not essential to crack such
questions in CAT.
English Usage / Grammar
Sentence correction or Grammar based questions appear in
different flavours in the CAT verbal section. It could be
questions where you are asked to spot the section of a sentence
that is gramatically incorrect or it could be questions where a
part of a sentence in underlined and you are provided with four
or five alternative choices. You have to select the choice that0
corrects the error in the underlined part.
More recently in CAT 2005, questions on grammar appeared with a
twist. A set of 4 sentences were given and you had to find out
how many out of the 4 sentences were gramatically correct.
A good understanding of the basics of English grammar coupled
with adequate exercises on the different types of common errors
that appear in CAT will help you sail through these kinds of
questions.
Verbal Reasoning
These questions could take multiple forms. The most common one
is that of rearranging sentences of a paragraph. It could also
include paraphrasing what has been said in a paragraph. In some
CAT papers questions similar to the ones that appear in the
Critical Reasoning section of GMAT have been tested.
CAT 2006 witnessed the comeback of Fact Inference Judgement
questions. These questions which were a standard feature in CAT
in the early 90s made a comeback in 2006. You will be given 3 or
4 sentences and will be asked to select which of the statements
is a fact, which a judgement and which an inference.
