In this volley, I want to point some of the very commonly seen habits that people pick up during their CAT preparation with regards to preparing for the verbal section. The reason I want to pick them out is that these are the habits that believed to be very effective but generally tend to do more damage to your mindset than benefit your cause. Read on carefully about the pitfalls that you need to avoid during the course of your CAT preparation.

1) When people start reading with CAT preparation in mind, they tend to try and understand each and every word that they are reading. It is certainly not uncommon to see people sitting with pencils/pens in hand, underlining words which they don’t know the meaning of along with a dictionary or a computer nearby to look up these words. While this does help you pick up new words, the important thing to understand is that this is a very inefficient way to doing it. Stopping to underline while reading will only cause you to break your flow, which is very essential while reading. Consequently you will end up reading slow. Reading speed comes with practice, and practice not just of reading but of reading continuously without losing the flow. Don’t bother yourself if you don’t understand a word or two in between; just continue reading till you finish the passage or article. You can always come back to the words and look then up, but first reading should always be a continuous uninterrupted one.

2) Another habit for preparing is using flash cards and other such media to learn the meanings of new words. Keep in mind that just knowing the meaning of the word in English is never good enough, you need to know when and how to use that particular word. Only then will you grasp the entire meaning of the word and inculcate it in your vocabulary. As I have mentioned before, CAT is not a test of your knowledge of English language, it just tests your ability to use the same. Hence it will always serve you better to read different articles instead, and look for meanings of words within that you don’t understand. This will give you a much better grasp of the words.

3) Many people restrict their preparation to just reading. While reading is the best means to prepare for a CAT like exam, it is by no means complete. As pointed out in the earlier volley, listening to the language is also critical in picking up pronunciations, contextual usages and alternative meanings.

4) And finally, don’t just read boring editorials and heavy duty philosophical articles all the time. Do remember that at the end of the day, you do not want to get irritated by the whole exercise. Mix and match the matter that you read, this will make the experience enjoyable and you will reap rich rewards out of it. Keep the fun element in English alive, trust me you will fall in love with it.