Apply these tips to practice your Verbal Ability Section and you ll be on your way

to ace it in CAT: Start Reading: If you love to read, then you have crossed you
r first hurdle. Majority questions based on reading comprehension, critical reas
oning, paragraph completion. sentence completion, para-jumbles and word usage ma
y be solved easily by those who have had a consistent reading habit. So, start r
eading novels, newspaper, magazines and everything else you get. Read to underst
and. Work on your Grammar and Vocabulary: Go back to elementary school and revis
e what you studied then. Every time you read, try to understand the usage of wor
ds and then make out the difference between a grammatically correct and an incor
rect sentence. There are endless sources on the net that give you the etymology
of words. Give 15 minutes every day to consult the 'horoscope' of words that hav
e been bothering you. But do it daily.
Develop Reasoning Ability: Well, this is
the most important part for acing the verbal ability section. Verbal reasoning i
s not limited to certain specific questions, but is a part of other type of ques
tions. It is essential to figure out the central idea of passage that they are r
eading. Once done, it becomes easy to answer the questions. The best way to deve
lop Reasoning Ability in the Verbal section is to read from a variety of sources
and question oneself about the author's motive behind writing the article. Abst
ract topics, those related to philosophy, religion, spirituality, psychology etc
are very useful in increasing your understanding about the motives of the autho
r. Plan:Prepare a schedule for your overall CAT preparation, and then for variou
s types of questions in the Verbal Ability section. This way you will have a pro
per exposure to all the topics.
Practice: Verbal ability can be enhanced only by
practicing, not mugging. Therefore try and take as many verbal ability sectiona
l tests as possible. This will help you to boost your confidence and get a hold
on the section. Remember one cardinal principle whenever you take a test. If you
get the answer right, forget and proceed. If you don't, do your best to find ou
t 'why .
Keep the above tips handy and cruise through this section.