How To Increase Your VA Accuracy On The CAT - The CAT Writer
How To Increase Your VA Accuracy On The CAT - The CAT Writer
How To Increase Your VA Accuracy On The CAT - The CAT Writer
V E R B A L S T R AT
One thing that has always bothered me a lot whenever I interact with students,
is that they seem to be very reluctant to let go of their playing-the-percentages
attitude to tests. Throughout school and college, we tend to study by playing
the percentages — giving importance to topics as per the number of questions
that appear from that topic in the exam. While this might be a great strategy
for school and college exams, as far as aptitude tests go, this strategy is suicidal
purely because of the fact that the difficulty level and the number of questions
across areas do not follow a fixed pattern.
How is this related to Verbal Ability in the current pattern of the CAT?
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 1/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
But the moment it changed to three sections with RC having almost a 70%
wieghtage people started ignoring VA. Verbal Ability has almost become a side-
show relegated to the last 10 minutes of the section and even within VA, the
bulk of the time goes to the second most useless question type in the history of
Verbal Ability question types across tests — Parajumbles.
I think as a strategy this is quite misplaced since CAT is always about picking
out the questions that will give you three marks in the shortest possible time
and having the technique to hit high accuracy levels in executing a solution.
The VA questions are TITA, and hence carry no negative marking, that
does not mean that you answer them in a cavalier fashion. You should
look at them like legitimate deliveries, off which you should to score 3
marks, rather than treat them like free-hits!
In this post, we will look at the specific strategies that will help you maximize
the return on time invested in the three VA question types that you will
encounter. We will use the actual VA questions from recent years to discuss
strategies.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 2/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
Read the passage, read the options and then if it is an easy question, the answer
will become obvious, if it is a tough question, you will get caught between two
options.
Where is the space for reasoning in all of this or when does the reasoning
happen?
So the first step is to stop after reading the paragraph and formulate what you
are looking for.
Every paragraph will be about three big ideas (at most) — X, Y, and Z — all the
rest of the sentences will be supporting arguments.
After reading the paragraph you have to paraphrase the X and Y and Z
of it, using the least number of phrases.
You then proceed to check each option to see whether it has the X, the
Y, and the Z
Let us take a question from CAT 2017 and see how to execute this process.
QUESTION 1: Easy
North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars (Amorpha juglandis) look like easy
meals for birds, but they have a trick up their sleeves-they produce whistles that sound
like bird alarm calls, scaring potential predators away. At first, scientists suspected birds
were simply startled by the loud noise. But a new study suggests a more sophisticated
mechanism: the caterpillar’s whistle appears to mimic a bird alarm call, sending avian
predators scrambling for cover. When pecked by a bird, the caterpillars whistle by
compressing their bodies like an accordion and forcing air out through specialised holes
in their sides. The whistles are impressively loud – they have been measured at over SO
dB from 5 cm away from the caterpillar – considering they are made by a two-inch
long insect.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 3/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
X — NAW Sphinx look like easy meals but they are not.
Y — They have a trick — they produce whistles that sound like bird alarm calls,
scaring potential predators away.
2. North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars can whistle very loudly; the
loudness of their whistles is shocking as they are very small insects.
3. North American walnut sphinx moth caterpillars, in a case of acoustic deception,
produce whistles that mimic bird alarm calls to defend themselves.
Eliminate Options
Option 3 lacks Z but has to be the option you must choose since it has two
important ideas, X and Y.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 4/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
The VA of this CAT had two summary questions, let us look at the other one so
that we can get a proper hang of the process.
QUESTION 2: Difficult
Both Socrates and Bacon were very good at asking useful questions. In fact, Socrates is
largely credited with corning up with a way of asking questions, ‘the Socratic method,’
which itself is at the core of the ‘scientific method,’ popularised by Bacon. The Socratic
method disproves arguments by finding exceptions to them, and can therefore lead your
opponent to a point where they admit something that contradicts their original position.
In common with Socrates, Bacon stressed it was as important to disprove a theory as it
was to prove one – and real-world observation and experimentation were key to
achieving both aims. Bacon also saw science as a collaborative affair, with scientists
working together, challenging each other.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 5/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
4. Both Socrates and Bacon advocated examining arguments and theories from
both sides to prove them.
Eliminate Options
One among X, Y and Z might be missing and you need to pick the two
important ones among the three.
The correct option will not use phrases from the paragraph but express
the same using different words, in other words, paraphrasing.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 6/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
I for one feel that this can be a tricky question type where a potential +6 (in
under three minutes) can easily become a -2, and you know what an increase
in 8 marks to your Verbal score can mean.
Your job is to get the odd-one out of your way and not sequence the
sentences and then get the odd-one out of your way
After you read the first sentence, label the sentence with a phrase that
captures the content of the sentence, say — advantages of echolocation,
latest advances in neuroscience etc.
You have to then proceed to the do the same with the other sentences
the label you have given to the first sentence is applicable only to
itself and the other four need a different label
Let’s take a few questions from last year and go about executing a strategy.
QUESTION 1: Easy
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 7/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
1. Although we are born with the gift of language, research shows that we
are surprisingly unskilled when it comes to communicating with others.
4. We talk more than we need to, ignoring the effect we are having on
those listening to us.
5. We listen poorly, without realizing it, and we often fail to pay attention
to the subtle meanings conveyed by facial expressions, body gestures,
and the tone and cadence of our voice.
What are labels that we can give to the content of each of the sentences?
Remember that you have to give a label that captures the content of the
sentence at a top-level.
From this exercise, it is obvious that sentence 2 is the odd one out.
The other question from this CAT was not this straightforward.
QUESTION 2: Medium
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 8/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
1. Over the past fortnight, one of its finest champions managed to pull off
a similar impression.
3. At 35 years and 342 days, Roger Federer became the oldest man to win
the singles title in the Open Era – a full 14 years after he first claimed the
title as a scruffy, pony-tailed upstart.
4. Once he had survived the opening week, the second week witnessed the
range of a rested Federer’s genius.
As you read the first sentence it is clear that this question is going to be tough
— there are no nouns that tell you what the subjects are, but yet can you come
up with a phrase?
Let us start with this and work our way forward by looking at the second
sentence.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 9/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
You won’t find all the elements necessary to label the sentence right
away
the sentence you are seeking to fit the label to is an inference from
the previous one and the label will fit once you able to identify that it
is an inference and hence related
It is a question type that is most intelligible to test-takers and thus a type that
everyone wants to take a shot at.
Let us use a board game analogy. If you see a chess board arranged for two
players to begin unless you know what chess is you can’t figure out what to do.
Even if you watch two players playing you can’t figure it out in a trice.
What if you see a snakes & ladders board with a dice on it? You can figure out
how to play it. Even if you do not know what a snake does you can figure that
out to be the opposite of what a ladder does. In the worst case, you can see two
people play for 2 minutes and understand.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 10/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
To use another analogy, this time from a casino set up, Blackjack versus
Roulette.
In short, JPs are like snakes & ladders and Roulette, too easy understand to not
want to take a shot.
When that paragraph in question was born, it did not know that it will grow up
and become a Jumbled Paragraph question!
Did its progenitor imagine that this paragraph will one day become a pain in
the wrong place for every CAT aspirant?
Since question writers are not writing their own paragraphs but use the words
of others, I have serious doubts whether sentences can always follow one
logical sequence. In reality it is a PJ played on the poor test-takers.
So, for the longest time I stuck to the principle — I will not respect Jumbled
Paragraphs by giving a strategy for the same
But then when students keep asking for strategies, there is only so much before
I put my head to it and come up with something.
Even with options, tough PJ questions were always a time sink with no process
to rely on. Without options, it’s not easy to fix one sequence out of a potential
120. Even if you fix 2 sentences it still leaves you will six options!
So, I thought I will try to replicate the process we used to use when there were
options.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 11/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
Step 1: Sort the sentence into one of two categories — Starter or Follower
When you read the first sentence you need to figure out one of two things — is
it a starter or a follower.
Any sentence that has any of the things listed in the previous point is a
follower and not a starter.
If you sort the sentence to be a follower you will always get clues as to how it is
linked to another sentence. Your task as you move to the next sentence is to
identify links between sentences using these clues. The common links are:
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 12/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
etc. The words that hold clues to a temporal sequence are after, before,
then etc.
List Link — A paragraph might be listing out things such as the there
are two kinds of X, three reasons for something etc. The clues to the
existence of such a list are words such as first, firstly, secondly etc.
Logical — When there is no other link there is only logic left. A few
clues are words sentences with words such as then, this can mean a time
sequence and it can also mean an if-then possibility, there was to be
some precondition to be fulfilled and only then something happens.
Other logical links are revealed through words sentences that start with
but, since, hence, thus etc.
At the end of Step 2, you should (will) always know the starter sentence and a
couple of links. The easier the question the more the links. For example, 3 is
the starter, and there are two links, 3-1 and 4-2. Then you know the sequence
has to be 3142.
On a tougher question you need to do the sequence using a starter and one
link, which you should always be able to find. Let us take a few questions of
varying levels and both 4 and 5 sentences and execute the strategy.
QUESTION 1 : Easy
2. Most people with progressive diseases like dementia prefer to have control over
their own lives and health care for as long as possible.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 13/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
3. Having control means, among other things, that patients themselves perform
self-management activities.
ANALYSIS
Sentence 1 — Not a starter has to follow something since it has the word “thus“
Sequence — 2 is the only possible starter, and we have two links 2-3 and 1-4, so
the only possible sequence is 2314.
QUESTION 2: Medium
1. The process of handing down implies not a passive transfer, but some
contestation in defining what exactly is to be handed down.
2. Wherever Western scholars have worked on the Indian past, the selection is even
more apparent and the inventing of a tradition much more recognisable.
3. Every generation selects what it requires from the past and makes its
innovations, some more than others.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 14/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
4. It is now a truism to say that traditions are not handed down unchanged, but
are invented.
5. Just as life has death as its opposite, so is tradition by default the opposite of
innovation.
ANALYSIS
Sentence 2 — Not a starter due to the phrase even more apparent, it is linked to
some “selection“, we do not know what the selection is.
Sentence 3 — Can be starter and has to precede 2 since it introduces the idea
of selection referred to in 3 — 3-2
QUESTION 3: Difficult
1. The study suggests that the disease did not spread with such intensity,
but that it may have driven human migrations across Europe and Asia.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 15/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
4. In the analysis of fragments of DNA from 101 Bronze Age skeletons for
sequences from Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the disease,
seven tested positive.
5. DNA from Bronze Age human skeletons indicate that the black plague
could have emerged as early as 3,000 BCE, long before the epidemic
that swept through Europe in the mid-1300s.
Sentence 1 — Not a starter since it says, the study and the disease, this sentence
can only follow after the study and the disease are introduced.
Sentence 3 — Not a starter since we do not know what skeletons are being
referred to here but this has to follow, not immediately, 1 since it gives
evidence for the migrations introduced in sentence 1
Sentence 5 — Has to be the starter since it introduces the disease, the Black
plague
Sequence — 5 has to start and 4 has to follow this since the studies and analysis
referred to in 1,2, and 3 and the DNA Analysis introduced in are all taken up in
4.
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 16/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
1,2 and 3; 1 has to immediately follow 4 since it talks about “the study”
introduced in 4, so the order so far is 541 followed by 2 and 3. We need to
determine whether it is 5-4-1-2-3 or 5-4-1-3-2.
Some of you might be scoring well on the VA-RC section and might feel that
you do not need to follow any process when your gut can do the job.
I myself am naturally good at Verbal but I realized a long time ago that having
a process or a technique gives you a way to think and reason your way through
tough questions, the easy ones can be taken care of by your gut. But even on
the easy ones having a process ensure that you reach there faster without
making any silly mistakes.
So those of you who find your scores in Verbal going up & down or feel that
you are unable to move it beyond a particular level should diligently apply
these strategies over quite a few questions and tests till they become your
natural way of solving.
For more, solutions using these techniques you can refer to the video solutions
of the SimCATs
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 17/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
T H I S E N T R Y WA S P O S T E D I N : Verbal Strat
TA G G E D W I T H : CAT Percentiles, CAT Strategy, CAT Verbal Ability, CAT Verbal Strategy, Parajumbles,
Summary
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is
processed.
C AT E G O R I E S
B-School Selection
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 18/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
Careers
CAT Strat
DI-LR Strat
Motivation
Quant Strat
Uncategorized
Verbal Strat
WAT-GD-PI
Webinars
XAT Strat
RECENT COMMENTS
Tony Xavier on Why every WAT-GD-PI call-getter should write the IIM-B SOP
Krupa Oza on Why every WAT-GD-PI call-getter should write the IIM-B SOP
Tony Xavier on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – II
Tony Xavier on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I
chandrakant on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – II
Chandrakant on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I
narayanan21 on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I
Divisha on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – II
Tony Xavier on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I
shreyasmungad on How to prepare for WAT-GD-PI – I
L AT E S T P O S T S
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 19/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
ARCHIVES
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 20/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 21/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
December 2016
November 2016
September 2016
August 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
M Y G M AT B L O G : T H E G M AT B L O G G E R
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 22/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 23/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 24/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 25/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 26/27
28/01/2023, 10:20 How to increase your VA accuracy on the CAT | The CAT Writer
Type to search…
https://thecatwriter.com/2022/10/03/how-to-increase-your-va-accuracy-on-the-cat-4/ 27/27