VARC-A reply of champions I dare say!

Verbal ability in any competitive exam is that particular art which if crafted correctly provides considerable dividends. VARC preparation involves one to get good at language and comprehension skills. These skills are not acquired overnight but do require a decent amount of investment over a bit longer period of time. One needs to be good at understanding what the author tries to convey through the passage. To attain that level of comprehension or understanding, you have to be well versed with ‘reading’.

Now, as I mentioned ‘reading’, you might think about how exactly this ‘reading’ is related to your competitive exams and how to get good at this particular aspect. So without any further ado, let me tell you that reading involves you being active throughout the lines that you devour all along. If you have been a reader for much of your life until now then there is no need to fiddle with what you have been doing, but if in case you haven’t been into reading, as is the case with most engineers, then also there is no need to fret about it. That’s the beauty of this section.

From here on, the sole intention of this write-up will be to make the aspirants aware of this important aspect that is reading. Now, there will be many questions on how to start, what to do, how to react if your efforts are not reflected in your mock scores, Is speed reading important etc. Do not worry, we’ll take everything head-on.

• Part -1: How to Start and what to do!

To start with, you can pick any article which belongs to your area of interest and comfort. You read it and write down(in a paragraph manner) what the author is trying to tell you through that article. If you continue doing this exercise for about 15 days(5–6 articles per day), you’ll notice a considerable increase in the amount of knowledge you can grasp with each sitting.
After about half a month what you’ll need to do now is level up your game and drop the pen/pencil which you were using while making the summary of what the author wants to convey and make this a mental exercise. Repeat this stuff for about 15 more days.

Your articles should be diversified to topics such as psychology, philosophy, biology, science, technology, space, medical, sociology etc. This is to help tackle the types of articles that different competitive exams are going to throw at you.

Once you get a decent experience of around a month with the type of reading you like, you need to diversify the type of text you read and move into those areas which are outside your ambit of comfort. In the initial days, it will look like a futile exercise but what else is VARC if not sheer perseverance.

Sources for articles- Aeon & Psyche; Aldaily; Catapult; 2iim curated list; Project Syndicate

• Part -2: How to continue with this exercise and build perseverance!

By now you should be comfortable with reading and the next target would be to build up much-required resilience in your reading. So this brings us to the part of the heavy reading that can be fulfilled through novels. By novels, I mean every type there is, be it autobiographies, biographies, fiction, non-fiction anything that you can lay your hands upon. Earlier, articles built your comfort with the text, now a novel on the other hand with help you deal with the issue of zoning out in between reading. You have to make sure that the type of reading is active and not passive. Treat this as gospel. If you lose your focus while reading, all that was read before and all that has to be read after will serve no purpose. Make it a habit to read a novel whenever you get sufficient time. Slowly but surely you’ll notice an improvement in your comprehension of the large text and no longer it will look like alien anatomy. A novel will also acclimatise you with longer sitting hours.

• Part -3: What after Reading!

After this couple of months of exercise, you should be more & more comfortable with your reading skills. There’s no better way to acknowledge your reading than by practising some questions/passages. In my opinion, you should start with GMAT Club Critical reasoning questions which will help you with building various types of questions that are there for you to handle, for example- assumption type, critical reasoning type, opinion type, argument type etc. Understand what the question wants to ask you and is there any insinuation by the author present in the passage. Never try to overcomplicate the ask. Your basic reading will help you sail through the idea and theme-based questions but for the rest, you need to handle them critically, one question at a time.

Sources- GMAT Club RC & GMAT Club CR

• Part -4: Is Speed Reading important?

The answer is Absolute No. Even if you are an average speed reader, you just have enough time with the 1 hour per section format. But if in case it sticks to the 40 minutes per section game, you have to push just a little over your normal. If you have been reading for quite a while then you can build up a decent amount of reading speed and also, it helps one if the VARC section is on the easier side. Always go for accuracy over speed. Once you think that you have attained a certain level of accuracy, then only go for speed. There is no point in attempting 34/34 questions and end up getting 17/34 correct. It’s always better to go for a 75–80% accuracy. Remember this- you’re always better off with fewer attempted questions rather than going for full bounty and losing those precious marks.

Still, if you want & once you are done with enough tests, you can always try a mock for the speed part without compromising your accuracy.

• Part -5: Getting in the real game!

Now comes the part where you have to play the real game i.e. take the passages head-on. The best way to do this will be by first practising the past year mock passages and then proceed towards the sectional tests. Once you start the sectional tests, make sure you do go through the section and make yourself aware of the type of passages in the section and the verbal ability questions. Thereafter, you can start with the section either with RCs first or with verbal ability questions first (you have to choose for yourself which strategy works the best for you).

I used to attempt all the RCs first and then the VA part. While attempting the passages, if I didn’t get along well with any question, I used to leave it for later and come back after I am done with the rest of the questions related to the passage and if in case it was too tough for me, I’ll leave it alone. Don’t ever try guesswork in VARC or think that you might get lucky, it SIMPLY doesn’t work.

The factor which works in the elimination based questions is your ability to effectively negate the options one by one which is not in line with the author’s thinking. Also, you have to take additional care of the questions which might seem correct due to an ‘extension of data’ that is present in the passage, be very careful of those questions unless these are ‘complete the paragraph’ types. You are not there to complement the author’s thinking and these type of questions which may seem to be correct will end up giving you a minus one

My strategy- Take a peek at all the type of passages & verbal ability questions and then decide from which passage to begin. I used to have a time breakup of RC and VA part as 40 mins & 20 mins respectively in the 1-hour section format and 25 mins & 15 mins in the 40 minutes format.

• Part -6: Staying Calm and Composed!

At last but the utmost important thing is to stay calm and composed before the section starts. Since VARC is going to be the first section of the exam, you are expected to be filled with energy but simultaneously you should control your nerves in case the language of the passages seem tough to you. Always remember this, if it is tough for you it is tough for everyone. You have got this opportunity to showcase the strength that you have developed in this subject. The field is all yours for that masterstroke.

Until next time. Happy Learning!