So much weight does RC have on the CAT, so many are the difficulties faced by test-takers and so frequent are the queries that I receive about RC, that I thought that it will be best to devote a series of posts to cracking Reading Comprehension.
Passage to Questions or Questions to Passage or…
Now the big question has always been whether to read the passage first and then go the questions or read the questions first and then go to the passage.
The problem with reading the entire passage first is that it is a great strategy for those who are exceptionally good and comfortable with reading long texts.
What does being exceptionally good and comfortable mean?
- The ability to read through the whole passage without losing concentration and the thread of the passage
- The ability to answer the primary purpose, the central idea or other summary questions (questions that test your understanding of the passage as a whole) without going back to the passage
- The ability to remember the exact part of the passage to go back to find the answer to a specific question
With most Indian test-takers the first ability itself is suspect. While they might start with the best of intentions, by the time they reach of the middle of the passage they
- start losing interest
- start sneaking a peek at the questions
- somehow manage to reach the end or
- start going back and forth between the questions and the passage
The problem with looking at the questions first is that we are then not doing RC but Match The Following. So that is something that I would rule out straightaway.
Paragraph to questions approach
What I would recommend to most test-takers is a third way that addresses the problems of the first two.
- Read one paragraph, check if there is any question related to it. If there is then solve it immediately — this will increase your accuracy on specific questions since you will have just read the specific part of the passage.
- If there is no question related to it then go-ahead to the next paragraph and repeat the exercise.
- Solve all Summary Questions at the end
- If the paragraphs are short in length, say 4 lines or fewer, you can read two at a time and then go to the questions
While I have been advocating this approach I am still getting queries around both the approach and RC accuracy in general.
The best way to answer this and other queries is to take RCs from a recent CAT and solve them using the paragraph to questions approach.
Passage 1: Creativity & Cities
Creativity is at once our most precious resource and our most inexhaustible one. As anyone who has ever spent any time with children knows, every single human being is born creative; every human being is innately endowed with the ability to combine and recombine data, perceptions, materials and ideas, and devise new ways of thinking and doing. What fosters creativity? More than anything else: the presence of other creative people. The big myth is that creativity is the province of great individual geniuses. In fact, creativity is a social process. Our biggest creative breakthroughs come when people learn from, compete with, and collaborate with other people.
Cities are the true fonts of creativity. With their diverse populations, dense social networks, and public spaces where people can meet spontaneously and serendipitously, they spark and catalyze new ideas. With their infrastructure for finance, organization and trade, they allow those ideas to be swiftly actualized.
As for what staunches creativity, that’s easy, if ironic. It’s the very institutions that we build to manage, exploit and perpetuate the fruits of creativity — our big bureaucracies, and sad to say, too many of our schools. Creativity is disruptive; schools and organizations are regimented, standardized and stultifying.
The education expert Sir Ken Robinson points to a 1968 study reporting on a group of 1,600 children who were tested over time for their ability to think in out-of-the-box ways. When the children were between 3 and 5 years old, 98 percent achieved positive scores. When they were 8 to 10, only 32 percent passed the same test, and only 10 percent at 13 to 15. When 280,000 25-year-olds took the test, just 2 percent passed. By the time we are adults, our creativity has been wrung out of us.
I once asked the great urbanist Jane Jacobs what makes some places more creative than others. She said, essentially, that the question was an easy one. All cities, she said, were filled with creative people; that’s our default state as people. But some cities had more than their shares of leaders, people and institutions that blocked out that creativity. She called them “squelchers.”
Creativity (or the lack of it) follows the same general contours of the great socio-economic divide – our rising inequality – that plagues us. According to my own estimates, roughly a third of us across the United States, and perhaps as much as half of us in our most creative cities – are able to do work which engages our creative faculties to some extent, whether as artists, musicians, writers, techies, innovators, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, journalists or educators – those of us who work with our minds. That leaves a group that I term “the other 66 per cent,” who toil in low-wage rote and rotten jobs — if they have jobs at all — in which their creativity is subjugated, ignored or wasted.
Creativity itself is not in danger. Its flourishing is all around us – in science and technology, arts and culture, in our rapidly revitalizing cities. But we still have a long way to go if we want to build a truly creative society that supports and rewards the creativity of each and every one of us.
Question 1
(A) enable people to meet and share new ideas
(B) expose people to different and novel ideas, because they are home to varied groups of people.
(C) provide the financial and institutional networks that enable ideas to become reality.
(D) provide access to cultural activities that promote new and creative ways of thinking.
Question 2
The author uses ‘ironic’ in the third paragraph to point out that
(A) people need social contact rather than isolation to nurture their creativity
(B) institutions created to promote creativity eventually stifle it
(C) the larger the creative population in a city, the more likely it is to be stifled
(D) large bureaucracies and institutions are the inevitable outcome of successful cities
Question 3
The central idea of this passage is that
(A) social interaction is necessary to nurture creativity
(B) creativity and ideas are gradually declining in all societies
(C) the creativity divide is widening in societies in line with socio-economic trends
(D) more people should work in jobs that engage their creative faculties
Question 4
Jane Jacobs believed that cities that are more creative
(A) have to struggle to retain their creativity
(B) have to ‘squelch’ unproductive people and promote creative ones
(C) have leaders and institutions that do not block creativity
(D) typically do not start off as creative hubs
Question 5
The 1968 study is used here to show that
(A) as they get older, children usually learn to be more creative
(B) schooling today does not encourage creative thinking in children
(C) the more children learn, the less creative they become
(D) technology today prevents children from being creative
Question 6
The author’s conclusions about the most ‘creative cities’ in the US (paragraph 6) are based on his assumption that
(A) people who work with their hands are not doing creative work
(B) more than half the population works in non-creative jobs
(C) only artists, musicians, writers, and so on should be valued in a society
(D) most cities ignore or waste the creativity of low-wage workers
Paragraph 1
A quick scan through the questions shows that there is no question based on the first paragraph. So you can move to the second one without answering any question.
Do not try to remember questions, if you do so then you will again be doing method 2 — match the following instead of RC.
Paragraph 2
The first question is a specific question based on paragraph 2.
It is an EXCEPT question that is asking you to identify the reason that is NOT stated to make the claim that cities promote creativity.
This has to be the easiest RC question of all time — A, B and C are clearly stated in the passage, D is not mentioned anywhere.
In effect, you have 3 marks in the bag in under 4 minutes.
Paragraph 3
As you start reading the first sentence of the third paragraph itself you should know that there will be a question on this; the first sentence itself says — it’s ironic. It goes without saying that they will test your understanding of what ironic means. The paragraph itself explains it. You go to the questions to find the next question based on it and pocket 3 more marks.
It is again pretty direct and you should have no trouble confirming option B as the right option.
By now you should have 6 marks in 6 minutes.
If you find this question tough then I am afraid there is a fundamental comprehension problem that no amount of strategies or shortcuts can solve. It might sound harsh but you might have to really take another shot at the CAT and spend a lot of time improving your ability in reading and comprehending text written in English.
If you have taken 10 minutes to score these 6 marks from three paragraphs then reading speed is a major issue. The only way out is to practice RCs alone non-stop for a week so that you put so much stress on your reading muscle that it has to grow.
Paragraph 4
After reading this paragraph, you should again scan the questions and you will find that question 5 is related to it.
This is where you will first encounter a mild case of — I am caught between two options.
Options B and C might seem to be vying for your vote.
So how do you break this deadlock?
In the words of my colleague Sujit Sir, who is the author of a famous RC Book, and is the one who makes most of the SimCAT RC questions, the first step is to identify the superficial difference between the options.
When caught between two options,
- Phrase the difference between the two options
- See which one is relevant to the question and eliminate if possible
- If not go the specific part of the passage
- If you are still unable to break the deadlock, go the previous paragraph
Option B — Schooling smothers creativity
Option C — Learning smothers creativity
Even without going back to the paragraph you can see that C has to be wrong! Between learning and schooling, the latter is definitely the culprit.
If you go the paragraph it will be clear the Ken Robinson is an education expert and he is referring to schools.
If it is still not clear then go to the previous paragraph, the last sentence screams the answer out loud.
By the way, I watched the Ken Robinson videos a long time back — this and this are definitely worth a watch.
9 marks in 8 minutes.
Paragraph 5
There is a question on this as well — question 4 — and as mildly indirect as a question can get. The answer is Option C.
If you are keeping count 12 marks in 10 minutes.
Paragraph 6
The last question is based on this. It is an assumption question that is pretty direct
The author says — in most of our cities 1/3, and in some 1/2, of our people work in creative jobs or jobs of the mind, while the other 2/3 have no jobs or do rotten jobs.
The assumption is captured by only by option A. 15 marks in 13 minutes.
At the end of the exercise, you are left with one unanswered summary question.
This is one of those typical CAT RC questions on which the options frustrate me since I do find any of them to be precisely correct. So the best option on CAT RC questions — reject don’t select. Your heart won’t leap and dance when you see the correct option, you have to reject and be happy with whatever is left.
Question 3
The central idea of this passage is that
A) social interaction is necessary to nurture creativity
B) creativity and ideas are gradually declining in all societies
C) the creativity divide is widening in societies in line with socio-economic trends
D) more people should work in jobs that engage their creative faculties
If we go by rejection then
- A can be kept
- B can be rejected since the last paragraph categorically says that creativity is flourishing
- C can be rejected since the passage only says that creative divide follows the socio-economic divide it does not say that the divide has increased
- D can be kept
Now we again boil down to two options and this is a summary question.
You can defend and not score instead of getting out
Should you always mark an answer for every RC question you encounter after you read a passage?
The summary question above is a poorly made one since neither option exactly captures the central idea.
Now if I look at my time spent so far, I have 15 marks in about 13 minutes, which is great from an MPM or Marks Per Minute perspective.
So do I need to break my head and waste my time over this silly question?
Nope, I will be better off moving on without collecting a negative.
Test-takers refuse to consider letting a question go an option. If they have spent so much time reading they think they might as well mark.
The odds of getting it right when stuck between two options are still 50 percent provided you haven’t eliminated the correct option!
So do yourself a favor — defend and not score instead of getting out.
Just to close things on this passage, between A and D I would choose A since it covers a larger portion of the passage and the author is not directly making a claim that more people should be doing creative jobs. The author only says that more people can be in creative jobs.
In the first version of this post, I only wrote this much about the last question of this passage.
But then I started a receiving a few queries that made it clear to me that for many test-takers weak VA scores have a basic problem with a few fundamentals.
They do not clearly look at what the question is asking but only look at the content that question refers to.
What do I mean by this?
The last question is an assumption question.
What is an assumption?
Something which is not stated but is central to drawing a conclusion.
Unlike the real world in which anything that is stated but not proven is not an assumption, on aptitude tests, it is an incorrect premise.
Which is why an assumption is also called the missing premise.
Premise 1 + Missing Premise (Assumption) = Conclusion
The paragraph is asking you to identify the behind the conclusion drawn in paragraph 6.
So before you go to the options go back and paraphrase the conclusion — Creativity divide mirrors the socio-economic divide.
Premises 1 — Cities that are more creative have 1/2 of the population doing work of the mind. Cities that are less creative have 1/3 doing work of the mind.
Premise 2 — The rest of the population is doing rotten jobs or is unemployed.
The conclusion has the term — creativity. The two premises have the terms work of the mind and rotten work.
So the missing premise has to connect creativity and work of the mind or rotten work. Only the first option does that.
So as a process when it comes to assumption questions please follow this process. Otherwise, you will always end up caught between the option that is relevant to the content but is not the answer and the actual assumption.
The reason I favour this approach is that as a question-setter (I have made a few RCs for this year’s SimCATs as well) I know that to make 6 questions I have to mine each and every paragraph for questions.
You can maybe have a 3-question passage with no question from a particular passage. But a 6-question passage will have 3 questions from three separate paragraphs.
I know that one passage isn’t enough to prove my point. So I will take up all the passages from the slot that this passage appeared in and analyze them through this lens. Hope by the end of this series of posts your RC woes will have reduced considerably.
The CAT Writer 
Hi Sir, Some serious advice needed from those who have given CAT or those who know about this, So I will graduate in Aug-Sep pursing BCom. The thing is I will still have a gap year as I have heard and my prep is not going too well, especially in quants and LR/DI. SIM CAT 8 even in VARC I fucked up scored around 21..so my point is my college is opening it’s MCOM forms. I want to know if I should fill this or not as MBA is my primary goal, if not this year so I will have a backup to say that I don’t have any gap year..We don’t have to go to college that much only on exams..but I also want to know that if my MCOM scores will be counted in CAT or not that is IF I don’t attend college this year..I am GNEM male 8/8/6..If anyone can answer I will be grateful…
BTW sir, this is the website I made to justify my gap year Parth Gupta – LinkedIn Personal Branding and Marketing Strategist..but in case I don’t score this year then registering for MCOM now seems like an option..what do you suggest sir?
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P.S sorry about the starting sentence, I did send this post in a group so completly forgot about that..
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Hi Parth,
Taking up an M.Com will not hurt you and will prevent a gap-year on your resume.
There is no weightage for Masters Degree marks, only for professional degrees such as CA/CFA.
So, short answer is go ahead an do it. It will not hurt and we will be a back-up against a gap year.
Hope this clarifies,
All the best!
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Thank you so much for replying, and also, I am so sorry about the starting lines as I did not notice it before posting here.
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That’s okay, Parth! Not an issue!
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Hello Sir! Amazing Article, Definitely helped. Looking forward for the next one.
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Hi Kunal,
Glad you found the post useful. Next one, next week.
Keep Prepping,
All the best!
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Dear sir,
I hope this is a right place for communication. If not then please let me know where would it be.
I’m a huge fan of your in-depth, reassuring writings. I am in my 3rd year of college and have been following your blog for more than a year.
Due to a mixture of procrastination, family events and illness, I began my serious prep in the starting of July, keeping the aim – finish Quant basics by 15 Aug and solve maximum number of VARC sectionals with moderate level DILR sets practice. I am well familiar with the pattern and syllabus and have taken 2-3 mocks until now – all performing poorly.
How should I go about my prep from now if I want to score b/w 95-99%ile in CAT’24?
Given the kind of acad bg i have (8/8/8, GNEF), a score of 99.9+ is the safest I could vouch for, for ABC selection. I believe I started a bit late than all my peers so maybe my dream score might not be 100% possible. My sole target this year is to maximise my capabilities and gear up for a strong attempt next year. I say this because I will give as many attempts as possible (<4) because I only want to get in tier-1 b-schools.
Since I will be graduating next summer and will have CAT within 6 months again, is it advisable to take up work-ex, if so then what kind? I do not want to have a gap year but at the same time, I believe CAT counts work ex only till Aug of the same year’s attempt.
Please let me know, if I am wrong in the way I am approaching all of this. I would sincerely appreciate your words.
Thank you sir. My LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/anamikamishra07
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Hi Anamika,
About the prep plan, it will be really tough to reply as a comment. A lot also depends on where you start from.
Order of mastery starts from selection, accuracy to concepts and not the other way around. Knowing how to pick out 25 easy questions and having the right technique to get 20 of them right is the first step. Instead most aspirants spend time trying to figure out learning the concepts required to solve 66 questions. Since you have a good profile I am sure your education so far has equipped you with the skills to solve 25 questions without any prep at whatsever. A detailed Prep Plan for the remaining period will be available on the home page of myIMS.
While I admire your determination to get into a top school, it should not be at the expense of everything else. When sportsman puts everything else aside to reach his goal, it makes sense since the Olympic Gold is the end. But getting into a college is not the end but a step tp build a great career. I would advise against however long it takes to get into A-B-C and instead ask you to make a list of 10 colleges that will give you a great career.
From this the answer to the second question will make sense. Don’t decide on the job, based on whether you will get marks for it or not. Decide on it based on whether it is aligned to your long-term career goals, the quality of work-experience and the kind of value it will add to your resume.
It is also not a bad idea to look for a job after the CAT next year but do ensure that you are not just sitting at home and prepping for the exam but doing things to build your profile.
Hope this helps,
All the best!
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Hello sir, thank you so much for your response.
Your statement, ‘Order of mastery starts from selection, accuracy to concepts and not the other way around.’ has shifted my perspective towards taking more and more of mocks and mastering the selection.
However, I do not understand how ‘accuracy’ comes first in order, before concepts? I mean, isn’t prior conceptual knowledge necessary to be able to solve with accuracy – could you please elaborate on that?
Sir, I understand your take on the end being the Olympic Gold medal and the same not being true for getting into a b-school, however, I want to say that I made a comprise while selecting my undergrad college because due to variety of reasons, I didn’t have much options back then and I do not want to ‘compromise’ as such again. Also, having been to IIM-A & B and having interacted with many seniors, seeing they took multiple attempts before they landed those places – this thought for some reason inspires me, however, I agree I might be completely wrong.
Coming to the job aspect, I am highly confused b/w joining a b-school with vs. without work-ex so I have just come to a conclusion – do a job until you crack the exam. This also comes from the fact that I might not be able to get the kind of roles I aspire, right after my BBA. And taking your advice, I will definitely not sit at home but either take up a job/another research project with an IIM prof/NGO work/upskilling through courses.
I really appreciate your comprehensive answers, they solve every related queries of mine.
Once again, thank you once again for your time sir.
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Hi Anamika,
To answer your query: even after knowing the concepts and how to solve a question, students do not have a high accuracy because they do not execute the solution well — they either misread the question or miscalculate the answer. I have discussed selection and accuracy in the How to increase your QA scores posts.
As far the A-B-C targets go, one of the big fallouts of past mistakes, in your case a compromise with the grad college, leads to people overcompensating later. Just like for graduation there are so many good, non-compromise colleges other than IITs, BITS, and premier 3-year degree colleges (Satya Nadella is from Manipal) for MBA as well there are many good colleges other than A-B-C that do not fall into the compromise bracket.
A student from mine had a similar issue, he was a CA with great work-ex and a great package and did not want to go any college other than A-B-C. He reluctantly joined one at my pushing. This is what he had to say after his MBA: https://thecatwriter.com/2024/05/22/my-mba-journey-iim-l-3/
In short, all I am saying that is keep trying until A & B might not be the wisest decision since it puts a lot of pressure and might not result in commensurate rewards — your list of colleges can definitely be longer.
Hope this helps,
All the best!
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Thank you so much for your kind response sir. It gave me a new perspective on my targets. For now, I will focus on getting good scores and will also keep an eye out for your new posts.
Regards,
Anamika
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Hi Sir,
I dont know how to start or stop sir….
Being a Non engineer struggling a lot with quants and lrdi.The only ray of hope i was seen was Varc.However that section is going in a terrible way.Solved a lot of Rc,can understand the passage , most of the time almost general questions were correct. But the difficulty of eliminating the options in specific questions decreasing my accuracy sometimes taking me in single digit numbers.
Please guide me on this sir..
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Hi Azad,
Please try atleast 10-20 passages using the paragraph to questions approach. I have solved more passages using the approach in the next part of this post.
If you are an IMS student you will a video called RC Masterclass 2 on myIMS, where I have outlined some approaches to RC as well solved a passage using the para to question approach.
Hope this helps,
All the best!
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