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Reading Comprehension
Simply put, this section tests your ability to understand written information. In practice, however, this can prove to be a difficult exercise. The passages are culled from a wide variety of sources - scientific, literary, philosophical and the style of writing can often be unfamiliar. Being a versatile reader can, therefore, be of help here. The questions are both direct and indirect. By indirect we mean - inferential - i.e they require you to make logical inferences from the information, so that the implications are also clear. This is the section where the time pressure is perhaps the most palpable as one has to read both quickly, and effectively.
Verbal Ability
Verbal Ability consists of questions based on vocabulary, usage and reasoning. This section deals with the correct usage of the English language the coherence and the conciseness of the language. The areas tested are synonyms, antonyms and sentence completion. The last requires, in addition to the knowledge of meanings of words, a sense of context. You may also have analogies in this section - the ability to identify relationships between pairs of words. This section also tests the knowledge of grammar - how to identify common mistakes made in colloquial language.
But in the last few years, CAT has tilted towards reasoning-based questions to such an extent that hardly 5-10 questions are designed to test your knowledge of the language. This in no way implies that vocabulary or English usage is irrelevant. On the contrary, your comfort with the language is taken for granted. The focus is then on a higher level of understanding - so that language and communication in any form should not pose a problem. Verbal Reasoning is designed to test your comfort with information that may not be presented in an easy-to-understand manner. Some of the problems in assimilating and understanding such information may be - a) difficult language, b) irrelevant information which confuses the issue, and c) technical language or "jargon". Logic helps us focus on what is being asked so that we may separate the relevant from the irrelevant and come to a conclusion. This section then, focuses on the flow of "logic" in any given information.
Problem Solving
This section tests the candidates quantitative ability. The questions asked are based on basic knowledge of Mathematics, covering such fundamental topics as Ratio & Proportion, Speed , Squares & Cubes, Geometric Principles, Trigonometry etc. conceptual clarity in these topics is a must as the questions are to be attempted in just over 30 seconds each. While the stress maybe on the quantitative aspect, good analytical skills are also required in order to comprehend a question and identify the best approach to solving it. In other words, the PS section is not merely a high speed maths section.
The PS Section in CAT usually comprises 45 questions. Around 5 questions belong to the category "Data Sufficiency", where one need not actually obtain a solution to the problem, but simply conclude whether or not the given data is sufficient to solve the problem.
Data Interpretation
This section, as the name suggests, tests a candidates ability to interpret the given data and arrive at conclusions. The data is usually presented in a graphical or tabular format, indicating such things as trends in sales of a product or a country's industrial production over a period of years. Given this information, one can find out the rate of growth ratios of various parameters, percentage change in value etc.
As a manager, one is likely to be presented with various graphs/tables that summarize data pertaining to one's area of work. An ability to arrive at quick and correct conclusions after taking a look art the data is an essential quality of a good manager. The objective of the DI section is to measure the candidates proficiency in this area.
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