Logical Reasoning an integral part of VA in CAT 2014

Logical Reasoning, if viewed in totality, plays a very important part in CAT Verbal Ability section. Out of 30 questions on VALR 10 are based on Logical Reasoning. If a candidate, however weak in Verbal and RC, prepares LR well he can score a sectional percentile as high as 60-70 in CAT 2014 with no share of answers from Verbal Ability. The irony however, is that the aspirants do not prefer preparing it the way they prepare the quant and Verbal. It might be due to the scattered or undefined syllabus which makes it difficult to systematically organise the study pattern of the aspirants.

Prof S K Agarwal, expert on Verbal Ability shares and suggests that Logical Reasoning needs less effort and the questions in this section are based on the natural human instincts, so they can be understood and solved fairly easily if proper attention is paid to this section. It serves as an aid to facilitate your entry to the top B-schools since it improves your percentile with a little logical understanding of the reasoning based questions.

LR clubbed with VA since 2010

CAT, since 2010 has Logical Reasoning clubbed with Verbal Ability and this section now consists of 30 questions – 20 on Verbal Ability and 10 on Logical Reasoning. Each question in this section gives you equal weightage i.e. 3 marks for every right answer. However, a penalty of 1 mark (one third of the credit marks) is imposed for every wrong answer.

Opportunity to score high percentile

Logical Reasoning alone, with 10 questions may award you a credit of 30 marks and with the expectation of substantial improvement in your percentile, you may remain relaxed even if you are not able to do very well in the Verbal Ability part which consists of 20 questions. If you can hit 7 LR and 10 VA correct you may expect a percentile above 85 in this section. There is no dearth of time as well since you have full 70 minutes for 30 questions – meaning more than 2 minutes per question.

Don’t jump; understand the typical LR language

The vocabulary used in logical reasoning questions is different from the one used in Verbal Ability hence it is imperative that you must have the knowledge of the terminology used in this part, since the questions are formed on the topics based on the said terminology in CAT.

Certain topics on which CAT prefers to frame the questions have specific logical rules to follow to solve them.

Important LR topics to prepare

It is suggested in the interest of the aspirants to prepare, attempt and practice more and more exercises & Mocks on the following topics.

• Blood Relations – family tree

• Seating Arrangements

• Syllogism

• Proposition based followed by either deductive or inductive argument

• Matching puzzles

• Constraint based arrangements

• Sets

• Clocks and calendars

• Assumptions

• Binary logic

• Venn Diagrams

• Statements

 

Solved Example

Following example based on past CAT question can be an indicator to the level of difficulty of problems in LR section. If you concentrate a little more, you can solve the problem without much difficulty.

The interesting fact is that unlike questions on Verbal Ability where one question on error correction, vocabulary or jumbled paragraph that awards you 3 marks each, LR problem is followed by 3-4 questions giving you an opportunity to score 9 to 12 core marks and 20 to 28 percentile with the same set of information given in the question.

Direction for questions 1 to 4 – Answer the questions that follow the information given in the undernoted paragraph.

Four families decided to attend the marriage ceremony of one of their colleagues. One family has no kids, while the others have at least one kid each. Each family with kids has at least one kid attending the marriage. Given below is some information about the families, and who reached when to attend the marriage.

The family with two kids came just before the family with no kids.

Shanthi who does not have any kids reached just before Sridevi’s family.

Sunil and his wife reached last with their only kid.

Anil is not the husband of Joya.

Anil and Raj are fathers.

Sridevi’s and Anita’s daughters go to the same school.

Joya came before Shanthi and met Anita when she reached the venue.

Raman stays the farthest from the venue.

Raj said his son could not come because of his exams.

  

Q.1 – Which woman arrived third?

a) Shanthi    b) Sridevi     c) Anita      d) Joya

Q.2-Name the correct pair of Husband and Wife?

a) Raj and Shanthi  b) Sunil and Sridevi  c) Anil and Sridevi   d) Raj and Anita

Q.3- Of the following pairs, whose daughters go to the same school?

a)Anil and Raman   b) Sunil and Raman   c) Sunil and Anil   d) Raj and Anil

Q.4- Whose family is known to have more than one kid for certain?

a)Raman’s   b) Raj’s   c) Anil’s   d) Sunil’s

 

How to figure out the answers

Four men are – Anil, Raj, Sunil and Raman; four women are-Shanthi, Sridevi, Joya, Anita. Now we have to find out –

Order of arrival – Anita was already there, Joya came before Shanthi followed by Sridevi.

Kids – On the basis of information we have- Anita (1 kid daughter), Joya has 2 kids, Shanthi –no kids, Sridevi- 1 kid daughter

Husbands – Since Anil and Raj are fathers and Sunil reached last, Anil is not the husband of Joya- we get – Anil-Anita; Raj-Joya; Raman-Shanthi; Sunil-Sridevi – now we have a clear picture and can answer any question logically; So

Ans. From 1 to 4 – 1.a) Shanthi   2.b) Sunil and Sridevi  3.c) Sunil and Anil   4. b) Raj’s

VALR in CAT 2013

CAT 2013 had 20 questions on Verbal Ability including three questions on critical reasoning, completion of last sentence of paragraph. Logical reasoning constituted sets, arrangements, arguments and was not very difficult although a little time consuming.

VA more inclined to LR in CAT 2014

There are certain topics in Verbal Ability section in CAT like inserting the last sentence of paragraph, out of context sentence in a paragraph, analogy that may be included in the Logical Reasoning section. If this is done, Core English will get more space in the Verbal Ability section of CAT 2014 as a few topics of it will move into the Logical Reasoning.

Please remember human brain is considered superior because it has the power to reason. It can distinguish between right and wrong, can pick out the relevant from the irrelevant. CAT has combined logic to reason, making it more advanced, more pointing and value added. Logical Reasoning therefore, becomes a guide to good decisions by following a systematic thought process.

By mbauniverse