The VARC section seems very easy at first. And you feel sure that your option will be absolutely correct. But when you look at the solution, you can't understand how that option turned out to be wrong. When I was preparing for the CAT exam, I scored a 99 percentile, and my percentile in VARC was 98. But this time around April-May, I was only scoring 20-30 percentile, which I then improved and brought up to 98. So in this video, I will share some key strategies and tricks with you that will help you learn how to reach the correct answer in VARC. So let's start with the syllabus first. I am showing the VARC syllabus on your screen. I will also add the link to this sheet in the description. The top 4 things are part of the CAT exam, while the others are non-CAT. The 4 CAT ones are: Reading Comprehension, Para Summary, Para Jumbles, and Odd One Out. Since I only took the CAT exam, I did not cover the other topics. You can do them if you want. If you are considering other exams as well. This one 'Reading Comprehension', plus the 3 VA topics, that is, 'Verbal Ability' topics. Which one should you focus on more? Out of the 24 questions in VARC, 16 questions are from RC. That means it already has the highest weightage. So the way you can handle both together is that your major focus should be on Reading Comprehension, and you can use the VA questions as fillers. Fillers mean when you need to take a break or if you get bored with Reading Comprehensions, then take up some VA questions for practice. At least, that is how I prepared. Now let's talk about your daily routine, meaning how many Reading Comprehension and VA questions you should solve daily. From January to March, I solved 3-5 RCs on a daily basis and almost 20-30 VA questions, on the days I didn't do RCs. Then from April to July, I increased Reading Comprehension to 5-7, and VA questions to 30-50 on the days I didn't do RCs. From July onwards, I decided to do as many as I could per day, because at that time you are also taking mocks and trying past years' papers, so you are already doing a lot of RCs. Let's come to the preparation material, meaning which resources you can use. So first, there are online resources. Within that, as much as you read, as you may have heard, the more articles you read, the better it is for you. All that material will be available to you online. So you have 'The Hindu' and 'Live Mint'. On both websites, you can read their opinion articles and editorials. They will serve the purpose. Second is 'Books'. So I used Arun Sharma's VARC book. Similarly, books by Nishit K. Sinha are also available. RS Aggarwal's books are also available. You can use any book you want. At the end of the day, it's important to learn the skill you need. The source won't be that important. Third is 'Coaching Material'. So I also took coaching, and I had study material which included worksheets. There were some of their own books in it too. So I used to solve Reading Comprehensions from there as well. Now I completely understand that for those of you whose VARC might be weak, but let's say the rest of the sections are better, they might feel that they don't want to spend 40 to 60 thousand on coaching. So let me share an affordable option that is also a partner of this video. You can consider Supergrads by Top Rankers, which offers a correspondence course where all sections are covered well, including VARC. In this, they dispatch a set of 20 books to you, which will contain high-quality questions. And these include 7 dedicated VARC books to help you ace this section. These will cover all your MBA exams. Similarly, they will also offer you 70 comprehensive full-length mock tests and multiple sectional topic tests, which will help you practice and also analyze your performance. You will get 35 master classes within this course, with a total content of 90+ hours. So in this, you will get tricks, concepts, and everything for each section, including VARC. Supergrads is offering all of this in a comprehensive correspondence course at a nominal price of ₹4999. If you want to check it out, you will find the details and link in the pinned comment and description. Then, 4th resource is mock tests and past years' papers. You should start these after July. This will give you a large repository of questions to solve. I will share one final resource with you. This is an Excel sheet that I prepared. In it, you will find various videos for VARC, and you can check out 2nd sheet for practice questions. Now let's talk about some tips and tricks. When I was preparing for RCs, I would set a time limit and then start solving them. I would feel very confident that I had marked the correct option. But when I checked the solution, it would turn out to be completely different. Anyway, I learned from the solution as well. I thought, okay, now I understand. But the next time I attempted an RC, I made mistakes again. So until May or June, I couldn't understand how to stabilize my score in this section. The first trick you should know that is ‘Improving Your Reading’. It took me a long time to understand the proper way to read, which is called 'Paraphrasing'. Paraphrasing means, let's say there's a passage with a total of 6 paragraphs. Quickly read each paragraph and write a short phrase that summarizes that paragraph. If you feel like you didn't understand the meaning of that paragraph, then at least write down some important keywords so that you can come back to that paragraph later when you see the question. This way, the entire passage will be registered in your mind in 6 phrases. You won't remember anything exactly, like the specific numbers mentioned in any line or if someone's name was mentioned, what that name was. And let me tell you, you don't need to remember them either. To give you proof of this, let me tell you that when we study at IIMs, our case books contain cases that are 30 pages long. So think, if I read one case and go to class, will I remember what that person's name was or or how much profit their company made? When the professor asked us questions in class, what did we do? We would go back to that particular page. Re-read that specific paragraph or analyze the data, and then give the answer. That is exactly what you have to do with Reading Comprehensions as well. So the biggest learning you will get from this is to spend time studying correctly, not just spending a lot of time studying. Wherever you are studying from, take each passage of 6-7 paragraphs, and write down the meaning of each paragraph. If you have marked where the answer is located, then as soon as you read the question, you only need to re-read that section, and then you can mark the right answer very easily. This is the first technique that will improve your reading. The second technique that I learned is to improve your comprehension. Now, suppose you have paraphrased the passage quickly and then you move on to the questions. How will you know which of the 4 options is correct? In this, most people make the mistake of trying to find the correct answer. While your job is to find the wrong answer & eliminate it. This is called the process of elimination. Now you might say that we solve by elimination. But still, your answer will be wrong. Because the logic you use to eliminate any option, you are not aware of it. When I understood this, what did I start doing? I started taking the question & physically noting it down. Like if you are solving online questions, take a diary and write down what is wrong with option A, what is incorrect in option B that makes it wrong, then what is the mistake in option D. After that, why is the remaining option C correct? After writing, you will check the answer to that question. Generally, the answer also explains why option A is wrong, why B is wrong, why D is wrong, and why C is correct. You eliminated option A for some reason, but the solution says that it should not have been eliminated for that reason, so it means your logic was wrong. You don't want your answer to be correct. You want your logic to be correct. A paper setter can only use a limited number of logics. So, there are around 10-15 logics. If you understand them well, you will learn to easily eliminate options. So to score good marks in VARC, there are only 2 techniques: Improving your reading and improving your comprehension ability. I hope that with these techniques, your percentile improves. If you have any questions in your mind, put them down in the comments and I will be happy to help you. Thank you so much for watching this, guys. And see you the next time!
