VARC is the foremost section and covers the highest number of questions (24) in CAT exam. While Reading Comprehensions and Passages highly dominate this section with 16 questions, the rest of the section consists of verbal ability questions like Para Jumbles, Para Completions, Para Summary and Odd Sentence Out questions. Selecting the right RC set can significantly improve candidates' success in this section.
Learn how to establish the chain of thought and use transition words, chronology, and enumeration to find out the order using these PJ questions.
The number of questions from these topics are that not high. If the error in the previous sentence irks you, dive in to find some more in these grammar and sentence correction questions.
Hate being verbose? Learn how to capture the essence of a paragraph in succinct lines by going through these para summary questions.
If meows and purrs sound sonorous to you, you'll love this collection of CAT vocabulary questions.
RCs account for nearly a quarter of the total marks in CAT. Develop your ability to read between the lines by going through these RC questions.
Practice Miscellaneous questions for CAT with detailed solutions. Take free CAT Miscellaneous previous year questions test. Who does not love a buffet? Have a go at our assorted questions from various verbal topics to satiate your verbal cravings.
Practice Critical Reasoning questions for CAT with detailed solutions. Take free CAT Critical Reasoning previous year questions test.
The number of questions from these Verbal Abilty topics are high. If the error in the previous sentence irks you, dive in to find some more in these CAT verbal ability questions.
Practice Odd One Out questions for CAT with detailed solutions. Take free CAT Odd One Out previous year questions test.
How to Prepare for CAT VARC?
While there is no preset syllabus given by VARC, candidates can take an idea of the syllabus by analyzing past year papers and molding their prepare accordingly. Here are the expert tips to best strategize your VARC prep:
Read! Read! Read!
Candidates should daily invest at least 1 to 2 hours on reading diverse topics to increase their area of knowledge. Increasing reading speed overtime and developing the habit of identifying inferences and underlying ideas in the passage is the key to score in RCs. Some of the top sources for diverse passages are- Indian Express, The Hindu, Aeon Essays, The Guardian.
Read Diverse Topics
Our experts suggest that candidates should read from diverse areas like history, politics, art, psychology, science, philosophy, literature, economics, abstract ideas etc. This will help them to expand the horizons of their knowledge ultimately making them feel a sense of familiarity with the RC sets in the exam.
Solving Past Year Sets for VA
To solve verbal ability based sets that of Para Jumbles, Para Completions, Para Summary and Odd Sentence Out, candidates will need to employ logics as well as grammar and vocabulary rules. They key is to practice past year sets to learn the pattern of these type of questions.
CAT-VARC Topic Wise Weightage
| Slots | Reading Comprehensions | RC Questions | Verbal Ability | VA Questions |
| Slot 1 | Return of wolves’ predation in a French region | 4 | Para Jumbles | 2 |
| Current economies of North and South Korea. | 4 | Para Completions | 2 | |
| Indian Ocean Literature | 4 | Para Summary | 2 | |
| Modern materialism versus ancient societies | 4 | Odd Sentence Out | 2 | |
| Slot 2 | Second-hand Shopping and Fast Fashion | 4 | Para Jumbles | 2 |
| Translated Streaming on Netflix in Europe | 4 | Para Completions | 2 | |
| Why Liberalism Failed | 4 | Para Summary | 2 | |
| What is Historical Fact | 4 | Odd Sentence Out | 2 | |
| Slot 3 | Colonialism and Global Warming | 4 | Para Jumbles | 2 |
| Understanding Romantic Aesthetics | 4 | Para Completions | 2 | |
| Cultural Patrimony Laws | 4 | Para Summary | 2 | |
| Rationality by Steven Pinker | 4 | Odd Sentence Out | 2 |
Frequently Asked Questions
The sectional VARC cutoff for General Category stands at 70, for NC-OBC-Transgender its 65, 60 for SC and PwD (General, NC-OBC-cum-transgender, SC) and 50 for ST and PwD (ST).
Some of the free good resources for VARC practice includes- past year papers, Cracku's Daily Tests, Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis for vocabulary building, Aeon Essays, Passages from The Hindu, The Gurardian etc.
Candidates can read material on variety of topics like economy, philosophy, science, astronomy, psychology, sociology, history, geography, art & culture, literature, fiction novels, abstract topics etc.
More than 65% of the section covers Reading Comprehensions. So candidates should make sure to practice a lot of RCs to score high in exam.
Attempting 18 to 19 questions with decent accuracy in VARC can be considered a good attempt in this section given that candidates maintain their accuracy throughout the questions.
