There are numerous other questions than RC, which play more vital and significant role in Verbal Ability than it seems and ignorance of which may have severe
consequence on the outcome. As far as the strategy is concerned for this section of exam, one important point must be taken into consideration that many such questions don’t carry negative marking , hence it gives you an opportunity to spare moderate time and all out efforts. Considering the nature of Paragraph summary ,Misfit sentence and para- jumbled questions , it is advised not to work out these questions in the last 10-15 minutes, It will be more appropriate to solve these questions after solving couple of RC questions. Various aspects and required approaches for Paragraph summary, Misfit Sentences and Para-jumbled are conversed below .
Questions based on Paragraph Summary
Paragraph summary questions require you to extract the strongly suggested essence of the paragraph. It is very much identical to inference question of reading comprehension. Hence it will make sense to judge what is priory described or hinted before you pick one many identical options. The correct answers must fulfill the fact test requirements.
‘The author’s primary purpose is..’, ‘..main idea of the passage is…’, ‘which among the following could be the title..’ and so on are some of the words associated with the summary question. It is one of the requirements that the underlying theme implied by the author should be grasped.
Followings are the areas of concern for summary questions :
o Inadequate justification: Given options will only provide a summary of a part of paragraph while neglecting the other paragraphs. Be wary of picking such an answer.
o Exaggerated opinion : Certain options may pick up the underlying theme mentioned and turn into an extreme opinion. Again, be extremely careful of picking such an option as they are quite tempting.
o Planted idea: Few options will pick up a piece of a sentence from the passage and then add a new idea which is not mentioned anywhere in the passage. Those who are involved in selective reading and reads only initial part may get trapped.
Para-jumbled questions
Though ,most of the candidates are tempted to attempt Para jumble/sentence completion questions in CAT, they eventually face too many confusing choices. And the sad story is, most of the time we end up selecting the wrong option. But the irony is it’s hard to leave these types of questions as these questions can be very scoring and consume less time as compared to an RC. Look at these suggestions
1. First , try to find the purpose behind the paragraph.
2. Identify the topic and theme. Eg. Topic – Corruption (general); Theme
–Politicians should be made accoutable for corruption (Specific)
3. Tone of the author is to be quickly identified (emotional aspect of the paragraph)
and style (manner of writing)
4. Carefully relate to crucial clues or linking words, mandatory pairs, Introductory
statement or Conclusion statement as discussed earlier.
5. Given options sometimes reveal how to solve the question.
6. Several magical pairs such as TSA ( Time and sequence of events )
Tangible/intangible, causes/effects play major role in deciding the sequence.
Misfit sentence
For Misfit sentence questions the same approach will be applicable which is relevant to parajumbled questions. One which doesn’t logically relates should be left out either on the criteria of TSA, general or specific , cause and effect , facts and examples and many more. Usually the odd sentence narrowly differs from the remaining sentences and the same approach required resolving analogies questions should be applied here too.