A LETTER FROM MUKUL SIR:... Dear CAT ’14 aspirant, Cheer up! for the CAT ’14 altered pattern brings with a it a greater possibility of ‘enhanced performance’. More number of questions would mean ‘more variety’, ‘less toughness’ and thereby a larger freedom of choice. You just need to select the right questions. The key to success is maintaining your focus for the next three months. Many of you have an irrational fear of the second section, especially the Verbal Ability part. There is no reason why you should think so. The Verbal Ability part in the CAT has little to do with your knowledge of grammar or advanced vocabulary. It has rather very little to do with your mugging skills. What you require to crack this section is a sound sense of reasoning – which one can definitely develop through a lot of ‘practice’ and ‘analysis.’ The most important areas are Paragraph Formation (Para Jumbles), Complete the Theme, Summary Based Questions and obviously Reading Comprehension. Commitment to a game plan will definitely bring in great results. Make it a point to practice ‘three passages’ on a daily basis. Don’t get boggled by philosophicsl/literary passages that you are not able to construe. Remember you are ‘not’ supposed to answer ‘all’ the questions on a passage. Select your reading content (passage) smartly when you write a test. “Do what you can do. Don’t fight with you can’t do.” Remember you would have ample choice to select the right questions from. Follow the ‘Title’, ‘Author’, ‘Theme’, ‘Anti-theme’, ‘Style’, ‘Tone’ and ‘Difficult Words’ approach as discussed in the class. On Screen practice is a must. Practice at least two passages from the e-concept builder on adaily basis. Likewise work on Paragraph Formation and Complete the Theme on a daily basis. Practice 5-7 questions on both areas – without fail – on a daily basis. For Fill in the Blanks (FIBs) the e-concept builder is an ideal platform. Word usage based questions are very tempting but equally risky. A usage questions appears very short but should only be attempted if you are 100 % sure. However, quite often you can crack such questions through intelligent elimination and background knowledge. The part of Grammar and Usage that is most relevant to the test (Parallelism, Subject-Verb Agreement, Modifiers, Phrasal Verbs and Prepositions) has been already done is most batches and would follow in the other batches very soon. Consolidating these areas through e-concept builder would work wonders for you. Practice alone is not good enough – proper analysis must follow. True learning comes from self-analysis and correction. Analyse every question you attempt. Build on the knowledge you have gained, and don’t repeat similar errors in the future. Feel free to discuss all the questions with me that you are unable to understand/solve despite putting in the best of your efforts. Don’t write too many tests in quick successions. Writing a few tests and analysing them thoroughly is a better proposition than taking too many tests and and leaving them unanalysed. Carry on with Newspaper Reading. Remember – “It is not done till it is done!” Feel free to talk to me personally for any queries or doubts. Dr. Mukul Dikshit IMS Learning Centre, Varanasi.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 06:38:05 +0000