CAT Exam 2024 Question Paper: How much time should you spend on DILR, VARC, Quant?

NEW DELHI: Acing the Common Admission Test has much to do with adopting the right strategy for each of the three sections of the CAT exam question paper – knowing how much time to devote to the questions, assessing difficulty level, and knowing which questions to abandon, said ARKS Srinivas, an expert on CAT preparation. The CAT 2024 exam is on Sunday, November 24.

IIM CAT Exam 2024: Live Updates, Analysis

The CAT question paper is divided into three sections – verbal ability and reading comprehension (VARC), data interpretation and logical reasoning (DILR) and finally, quantitative analysis (QA or Quant). In a recent video for Careers360, Srinivas suggests that the candidate must first assess the CAT 2024 question paper itself and its overall difficulty level – easy, moderate or difficult – and have a clear idea of what they are most comfortable with or find most challenging. For both, prior practice on CAT mock tests is a huge help.

“You have 120 minutes to solve, 40 minutes for each section. How do you make sure that you maximise your scores? …There are certain elements of success you need to know. What are you good at? What are your zones of comfort in each section? And do you also know where your weaknesses are? I think that zone of comfort can help you make a quick decision,” said Srinivas.

He pointed out that the CAT question paper has 198 marks for 66 questions but a candidate really needs to score less than 50% of that “about 90-95 marks” for IIM admission.

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He had suggestions for each of the three sections.

CAT 2024: VARC questions, 40 minutes

The VARC section contains four reading passages and questions based on those. Srinivas suggesting allocating time to reading comprehension (RC) and verbal ability (VA) components in one of the following patterns:

• 28 minutes for RC and 12 minutes for VA

• 30 minutes for RC and 12 minutes for VA

Srinivas pointed out that each reading passage in the RC section is roughly 500-550 words and taking questions together, there will be about 900 words to read for each of the four passages. About 7.5 minutes for each should be sufficient.

For this section and even for the rest in the IIM CAT exam question paper, Srinivas suggests having a “stop loss” deadline for each part after which the candidate moves to another section. For the RC section, the cut-off point is 30 minutes.

“Stop at 30 minutes because there will be easy questions,” explained Srinivas. “There are easy questions and difficult questions in all areas. The idea, therefore, is to not miss out on easy questions. That is why, allocating at least 10 minutes to the verbal side is very important."

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In an alternative strategy, especially for those who prefer not to read masses of text in CAT questions at the start of the exam, Srinivas suggested beginning with VA. The plan goes something like this:

• Start with VA and spend 7 minutes on it. This should allow for answers to about five questions.

• Move to RC and devote the next 30 minutes to it.

• Come back to VA for the remaining three minutes.

IIM CAT 2024: DILR questions; 40 minutes

"You have to be very clinical in your approach to attempting this DILR," said Srinivas. He suggests that the candidate must spend the first three minutes studying each set and pick which ones to actually attempt. “Read the set and questions to decide if you can solve it,” he said.

Candidates must check for whether a DILR CAT question is familiar to them and whether it might be too complex, with too many conditions in both the question and the answer options.

“If you can solve, spend 8-9 minutes on the set, giving 11-12 minutes per set. See all the four sets…. Chances are you can attempt 9 to 13 or 14 questions,” he said.

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Each set has five questions and even within those, a few will be easy. “Your smartness is in avoiding very lengthy or difficult questions. There are three marks for every question,” said Srinivas.

Those aiming for an 85 percentile score and above but below the high 90s can

• Spend 5-6 minutes going through all four sets and select two or three on the basis of “familiarity and complexity”

• Solve three-to-five questions from each of the selected sets

IIM CAT Exam 2024: ‘Fearsome’ Quant questions; 40 minutes

The QA or Quant section of an IIM CAT question paper is usually regarded as the “most fearsome”, especially by non-engineering attempting the CAT exam, Srinivas said.

“But it is a very easy one if you do it with a very specific way of attempting,” he said. “Your job is to not only select easy questions but also avoid difficult ones or leave them for later.”

In the first way to approach quantitative analysis, Srinivas suggests attempting the second in two rounds:

• Round 1: 25-26 minutes to read the questions, answer the easy ones and mark the more difficult but otherwise “solvable” ones for later.

• Round 2: 12-13 minutes to return to the marked questions to see how many can be solved

In another way to tackle the IIM CAT’s Quant questions, convert the 40-minute paper into a “10-minute game” and aim to solve a few questions in each. That way, you will have solved “a chunk of questions that’ll give you marks”, he said.