Questions based on Punctuation marks have been asked in competitive exams frequently. These concepts are really important if you are looking at some of the banking exams or exams like SNAP. It is a good way to check a person's 'Verbal Ability'. With the help of my friend Sanket, I have a compiled a set of some examples followed by some previous year questions that can help you understand the concept better. The Purpose of Punctuation: Punctuation is used to disambiguate a sentence by using spacing, conventional signs, and certain typographical devices Punctuation introduces appropriate paus

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In the series on confusing words (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) we looked at words that sound similar or look similar but mean different things. There is another class of words you should be careful about - these are words that are often used interchangeably (and wrongly at that, I must add). This generally leads to bad writing than bad comprehension when used. You do not need to look far away for instances of not knowing the difference between these similar sounding words. Just ask any MBA aspirant whether have any preferences for specialization and a lot of them say ‘Marketing’. Just fol

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We all have learned about the eight parts of speech in our school days. If you recall, these parts of speech form the building blocks of English grammar. But, how is it important for CAT? Well, learning about the various parts of speech and the related rules will help you answer the grammar-based questions accurately. Such questions may feature in form of error detection, sentence correction, fill in the blanks and word usage. In other words, the grammar section holds a crucial weight in CAT verbal ability. An interesting thing about words is that they can be of more than one type depen

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After you have learn about the different types of RC passages, the next step should be to familiarize yourself with the kind of questions that are asked from these passages. Out of 34 questions in CAT Verbal Ability, more than 20 questions are based on RCs. Well, that makes for a good amount of weight-age. But why is there a need to know the types of questions when you feel pretty confident after investing sufficient amount of time in reading and practicing? Once you have understood the passage and the crux of it, you need to apply this understanding in answering various questions. If you c

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Every time I think about how to prepare for RC, I am struck by how similar the process of reading is to the technique of driving. If your driving technique is sound, you can drive any car properly. On the other hand, if the technique is poor, you end up wrecking every car you drive. Reading fiction is somewhat like driving a train. Who among us hasn’t ever fantasised about having the best seat on the train? I could give an arm and a leg to be in the driver’s cabin of a German ICE train, or the Swiss Lyria, or the Austrian Railjet, or the Italian Frecciarossa, or the Shanghai Magl

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