The role of VARC in CAT
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension is the first section of CAT. In CAT 2025 it had 24 questions in 40 minutes, out of 68 in the whole paper. Because the section comes first, a poor VARC can unsettle the rest of your two hours, and because the sectional clock is strict, you cannot make up lost time later. Many IIMs and other schools also apply a sectional cut-off in VARC, so a weak score here can rule you out even when your overall percentile is high. That is why even candidates who are strong in quantitative subjects treat VARC as a section to protect, not to ignore.
VARC differs from the other two sections in how it improves. Quantitative topics can be learned in weeks; reading speed and the ability to follow a difficult argument usually take months. So the practice for VARC has to start early, and mocks matter more as a training method than as a measurement.
What the section contains
| Question type | What it asks | Typical format |
|---|---|---|
| Reading comprehension | Questions on a passage: main idea, inference, tone, application, specific detail, vocabulary in context | Mostly MCQ; passages of roughly 400-600 words with four to six questions each |
| Para-jumbles | Reorder sentences into a coherent paragraph | Often type-in (no options) |
| Para-summary | Choose the best summary of a paragraph | MCQ |
| Odd sentence out | Find the sentence that does not belong | Often type-in |
The share of reading comprehension in the section has been large in recent years, and the verbal ability questions have mostly been of the para-jumble and para-summary kind. Grammar-based questions such as error spotting, which are common in other exams, have been rare in CAT. Format details such as the passage count and which questions are type-in vary by year, so rely on the current notification and recent papers.
Syllabus areas for VARC
The IIMs do not publish a detailed syllabus, so the topics below are drawn from recent papers.
- Reading comprehension passages on economics, politics, philosophy, history, science and the arts. The writing is argumentative or explanatory and often uses abstract vocabulary.
- Inference and application questions, which ask what follows from the passage or how its idea applies to a new case.
- Author tone and purpose: is the author critical, neutral or sympathetic, and why is this paragraph present?
- Sentence ordering and coherence: how paragraphs are built from topic sentences, transitions and conclusions.
- Summarising and sentence-level logic: identifying redundant or off-topic sentences.
Why VARC feels hard and what actually helps
CAT passages are chosen to be unfamiliar and to have close answer options, so that candidates cannot guess from common sense. Three skills carry most of the weight:
- Following the argument. Reading for the structure (claim, evidence, counter-claim, conclusion) rather than for each sentence.
- Staying in the passage. Choosing the option that is supported by the text, not the one that is true in general or sounds sophisticated.
- Elimination. Knowing the common wrong-option patterns: too extreme, true but not stated, out of scope, reversed relation.
The surest way to build the first skill is volume of reading. Aim for 30 to 45 minutes a day of long-form writing from a variety of sources, and after each piece write the main claim in one sentence and the structure in two. The second and third skills are built by reviewing passage questions carefully after a mock. For a routine, see a daily reading comprehension routine and our note on building vocabulary that sticks.
Passage selection: the decision that shapes your score
With around 24 questions in 40 minutes, you will have to decide which passages to attempt, and in what order. A workable method is a ninety-second skim at the start: for each passage, read the first few lines and glance at the number of questions. Then rank them as accessible, average or dense. Attempt the accessible ones first, then the average ones, and take the dense ones only if time remains.
What makes a passage dense? A passage on an unfamiliar technical subject, one with long paragraphs and few signposting words, or one with abstract nouns piled on each other. The topic itself does not matter; what matters is how quickly you can build a picture of it. You will improve at the skim itself only by practising it in mocks, which is why sectional VARC tests are valuable.
Handling each question type
Reading comprehension
Read the passage once at a steady pace, noting the paragraph roles in the margin of your mind: introduction, argument, example, counter-argument, conclusion. Then read the question and look back. For detail questions, find the line. For inference questions, choose the option that must be true if the passage is, not the one that merely could be. For tone questions, look for evaluative words. When two options remain, ask which is closer to the passage's own words and weaker in its claim.
Para-jumbles
Find the opening sentence first: it usually introduces the subject without relying on a pronoun or a connector such as "however". Next find mandatory pairs, such as a sentence that introduces a term and the sentence that defines it, or a sentence with a pronoun and the sentence with its noun. Because many of these questions have no options and no negative marking, always type in your best sequence.
Summary and odd-one-out
For summaries, check that the option covers the whole paragraph, not just one part, and does not add new ideas. For odd sentence out, find the topic of the group and look for the sentence that changes subject, scale or time.
A worked example: one passage, three questions, and the elimination behind each
The passage below is original, written for practice, and shorter than a real CAT passage (about 200 words against the 400-600 you will see). Read it once, then try the questions before you read the explanation.
Before the railways, each town in Europe and America kept its own time, set by the noon sun. A traveller moving a hundred miles east or west would find local clocks several minutes apart, and nobody much minded, because journeys were slow enough that a few minutes made no difference. The railways changed this. A timetable is a promise that a train will be at a given place at a given moment, and the promise is meaningless if every station on the line keeps a different time. Companies at first solved the problem privately, keeping "railway time" on their own clocks, so that a station might display two times, one for the town and one for the train. It was an awkward arrangement, and it is easy to see in it the beginning of a larger shift: what had been a matter of local custom became a matter of coordination, and coordination, once required, tends to be imposed from above. By the end of the nineteenth century most countries had adopted standard time zones, usually by law, and the sun, which had once defined the hour in every village, was left to define only the light.
Q1. The main point of the passage is that: (a) railways made local time obsolete by creating a need for coordination across places; (b) travellers in early Europe were frustrated by the differences between local clocks; (c) railway companies became more powerful than governments; (d) the sun is not an accurate way to measure time.
Q2. Which of the following is most strongly implied about time-keeping before the railways? (a) It was highly inaccurate; (b) it caused few practical problems because travel was slow; (c) it was set by governments; (d) it was identical in all towns.
Q3. The author's attitude toward the change described can best be called: (a) nostalgic regret for the lost role of the sun; (b) detached explanation with a touch of irony; (c) angry criticism of the railway companies; (d) enthusiastic praise of standardisation.
How the answers are reached
Q1: (a). The passage moves from local time, to the railways' need for a shared timetable, to standard zones. Option (b) is contradicted by "nobody much minded"; (c) is never claimed; (d) misreads the last line, which is about the sun's role, not its accuracy. Notice that the wrong options are each built from a real phrase in the passage, which is typical of CAT.
Q2: (b). The passage says clocks differed by minutes and that "journeys were slow enough that a few minutes made no difference". It does not say who set the time (c), it says the clocks differed (d) and it never calls the system inaccurate, only local (a). Inference questions reward the option that restates what the text supports without adding anything.
Q3: (b). The explanation is neutral, which rules out (c) and (d), and the final clause ("left to define only the light") carries a gentle irony rather than regret, which rules out (a). Tone questions usually turn on a few evaluative phrases; learn to underline them.
Notice the time cost of this exercise: a passage of this size takes about a minute to read, and each question about thirty to forty seconds if you work from the structure. A real passage takes proportionally longer, which is why speed in reading, not only comprehension, decides how many passages you can complete.
Time management in the 40 minutes
| Minutes | What to do |
|---|---|
| 0-2 | Skim all passages; rank by accessibility |
| 2-28 | Attempt the passages in your order; about seven minutes for a five-question passage, including reading |
| 28-36 | Verbal ability questions (para-jumbles, summary, odd one out); these are quicker and partly type-in |
| 36-38 | Return to the best flagged question |
| 38-40 | Check that every type-in question has an answer entered |
This is a starting point, not a rule. Some candidates do better taking the verbal ability questions first because they are fast and the points are certain; others prefer to start with passages while their concentration is highest. Test both in mocks, one change at a time, as described in section-wise time management.
Negative marking in VARC
A wrong MCQ answer costs one mark against three for a correct one, so you should guess only after eliminating at least one option. In practice, in RC questions this means you should skip questions on which you are torn between two options and have no textual reason to prefer either. Type-in questions carry no penalty, so always fill them. See the CAT marking scheme for the arithmetic.
How to practise: topic drills, sectionals and full mocks
- Daily reading (30-45 minutes). Different sources each day, with a two-line summary after each.
- RC sets (three times a week). One or two passages with timing, followed by a careful review of every question, including the ones you got right.
- Verbal ability drills (twice a week). A set of para-jumbles and summaries, timed.
- VARC sectional mock (once or twice a week). A full 24-question, 40-minute section, with passage triage and a strict clock.
- Full-length mocks (weekly in the last months). To see how VARC behaves as the first section of a two-hour paper.
A four-week VARC routine to adapt
| Week | Daily reading | Practice | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30 minutes, any source you enjoy | Three untimed RC passages | Accuracy and the habit of finding the supporting line |
| 2 | 35 minutes, include one unfamiliar subject a day | Three RC passages, timed at 8 minutes each | Speed without losing accuracy |
| 3 | 40 minutes, long-form essays | Two RC sets and two verbal ability sets | Passage selection and para-jumble method |
| 4 | 40 minutes | Two VARC sectionals (40 minutes each) and reviews | Triage and time budget |
Repeat the cycle, raising the difficulty of the sources and shortening the time per passage. If a week goes badly, keep the reading and drop a practice session rather than the other way round: reading volume is the foundation, and everything else rests on it.
Analysing your VARC result
After a sectional or full mock, record your attempts, accuracy and time left. Then classify each wrong answer:
| Error | What it looks like in VARC | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Reading error | You missed a qualifier ("only", "most", "often") or misread the question stem | Underline qualifiers; read the stem twice |
| Out-of-passage choice | You picked an option that is true generally but not in the passage | Find the supporting line before marking |
| Extreme option | You chose an option with "always" or "entirely" that overstates the text | Prefer the weaker claim when two options are close |
| Passage selection | You spent ten minutes on a dense passage and had to rush others | Cap the time per passage; practise skimming |
| Vocabulary gap | You did not know a key word and misread a sentence | Note it in a word list; infer from context |
| Guessing | Two options remained and you marked one at random | Skip unless you have a reason to prefer an option |
Redo the passages you skipped, without a clock, and see whether they were as dense as they first looked. This feedback sharpens your skimming. For a complete routine see how to review incorrect questions.
Common mistakes in VARC preparation
- Relying on newspapers alone. Editorials are useful, but long-form essays train the stamina CAT passages need.
- Reading passages without a timer for months and then being surprised by the pace.
- Skipping the verbal ability questions because they feel unfamiliar; they are often quick marks.
- Over-reading: rereading the whole passage for each question instead of locating the relevant lines.
- Ignoring option elimination and trying to find the perfect answer instead of the best-supported one.
Related pages and tests
For the whole exam, see the CAT mock test hub, the exam pattern and the CAT mock test strategy. The other sections are DILR and Quantitative Aptitude. For English-language drills that support VARC, try vocabulary practice. A worked example of review is in how to use mock tests for CAT preparation. The available VARC-related tests on TestMint appear below when institutes have published them.
Note: VARC details above reflect the CAT 2025 paper (24 questions) and the reported CAT 2026 notice; passage and question counts can change, so check the official notification.
