With CAT’s stature, it is sure to outsmart candidates with various questions and increasing levels of difficulty. Of the various sections of the CAT exam, one of the most essential components of the verbal section is the jumbled paragraph.
In the verbal section, the unordered paragraph questions carry a group of sentences out of place, which must be placed in an order that makes sense. In the unordered group, none of the sentences is arranged in a proper sequence. This section is specifically designed to test the student’s understanding of the language, reading versatility, writing ability, and use of grammar, tenses, and vocabulary.
The jumbled paragraph questions earn the applicant around 12 to 15 percent points depending on the number of jumbled paragraphs. With the increasing difficulty level of jumbled paragraphs, the mantra for solving such questions is to develop expertise in such questions by continually practicing and following a strategy.
To avoid any slip-ups, one strategy to follow when attempting these questions is to stay on track and proceed one step at a time. Also, it is important to analyze the paragraph and enjoy solving messy paragraphs instead of taking it as a burden.
CAT papers have followed the trend of using any theme or genre for messy paragraphs. Some of the most used themes are the following:
• Based on ideas
• Stock
• Contrast
• General to specific or vice versa
• Cause and effect analysis
Nowadays, there are many CAT test books and CAT preparation guides to help students to have a hand in such language questions. Arun Sharma’s CAT Prep Books is one of the famous CAT Prep Books available in the market today.
To solve unordered paragraph questions, students need to follow the given points:
Step 1 – Setting the tone and the idea of the awards will help you categorize the opening and/or closing of the award. With good reading speed and accuracy, the deletion method can also be chosen to solve these questions.
Step 2 – Find the link between the sentences and look for connectors to the sentences. For example; pronouns used in place of some proper/common nouns, conjunctions, demonstratives (these, those, this, that), personal (he/she/it/they/their, etc.), relative (who, whose, that, which, etc.) .
Step 3– Some of the paragraphs will be arranged in chronological order. There will be events in the paragraph that would come first and some that you need to put at the end to make sense of the given paragraph.
Stage 4 – An unordered paragraph would include certain words that denote the end of the paragraph or the transformation to the next paragraph. For example; however, therefore, thus, simultaneously, summarizing, in a few words, however, in addition to, therefore, etc. These words must be carefully noted and reassembled in the paragraph.