Understanding Percentage The word “Percent” can be understood as “per 100” or “out of 100”. Percentage in itself is a dimensionless number used to tell how many parts per hundred are being considered. It is often denoted using the percent sign, "%". The reference point for calculating percentage is taken as 100. If in a class of 100 students, 90 students passed in a subject then the percentage of students who passed in the exam is 90%. Had the total number of students been 200, the percentage would have reduced to 45%. This is because 45 students out of every 100 students pas

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Quadratic Equations are first taught to us in 6th or 7th class and most of us are able to score good marks in it because we are able to solve 90% of the questions by just using that formula. And that formula is: The above formula gives us the roots of the quadratic equation ax2 + bx + c = 0 For this post, I am assuming that you are aware of the basics of quadratic equations and know how to use the above mentioned formula. In case you are not, spending five minutes on the wiki page of Quadratic Equations won’t hurt. Wikipedia can be daunting at times, so come back here as soon a

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Figuring out the last digit is the same as figuring out the remainder of a number when divided by 10, but I guess you already know that. Figuring out the last two digits is the same as figuring out the remainder of a number when divided by 100. However, if you wish to figure the remainder when the divisor is not 10 or 100, I suggest you read on. Funda 1 of Remainders:  Basic idea of remainders can be used to solve complicated problems.     There is nothing special or unique about this idea. At first glance it seems like something really obvious. But it is it

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In our previous post on games and tournaments part-1, we discussed about two of the popular types of questions when it comes to games and tournament questions. So, if you are looking for questions on new types of data representation or questions based on seeding in a tennis tournament, probably you should read that. However, there is another popular type of questions with respect to Games and Tournaments and that is – Football / Hockey tournament questions in which we have to find out Goals scores, winners, ties, etc. In such tournaments, all competitors play a fixed number of matches

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In Logical Reasoning very often we encounter problems based on games and tournaments. The first thing that as a CAT taker you need to realize is that such tournament based format offers the examiner a multitude of options. So, there cannot be a set formula for solving such kind of questions. However, if you look at the CAT papers of past few years – a pattern seems to emerge. Let us discuss couple of them. Type 1: The questions are typically in a set where the data will be either in the standard tabular format or a format which you would never find on Cricinfo or for that matter any o

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In this Number of trailing Zeros blog post, We would like to cover these two ideas: Number of trailing zeroes in a Product or Expression Number of trailing zeroes in a factorial (n!) But before I begin, let us first try to understand what exactly are ‘trailing zeroes’. It is nothing else but the number of zeroes at the end. I do not want to sound pedantic but on many occasions when you see a question which asks about, “What is the number of zeroes in ___” it is incorrect, because it should actually say – “What is the number of trailing zeroes?” or “What is the

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I guess my first fascination with problems of Time, Speed and Distance began when I first saw Henna. An important part of the story line  if you can call it that, saw Rishi Kapoor floating from India to Pakistan without drowning. I remember arguing with my friends that if could float for that long – he could swim back to India as well. My friends nullified the argument by saying: Speed River > Speed Rishi Kapoor I know that the reference is a little dated for most readers of this post, but Zeba Bhaktiyar made me look beyond reason. In this post we will discuss some of the ideas that

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Questions on clocks (or even calendars) are not really frequent in CAT these days. They used to be really popular few years ago. Having said that, it is always better to understand some of the basic principles and the types of problems that get asked. They might come in handy in case of other exams like CMAT, MAT, SNAP, etc. Clock problems can be broadly classified in two categories: a)      Problems on angles b)      Problems on incorrect clocks Problems on angles Before we actually start solving problems on angles, we need to get couple of basic facts clear: Sp

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A very common type of question that gets asked in various banking and management entrance exams is based upon the concept of finding out the rank of a word. In this post, I will like to discuss the concept behind the same. Let us look at the two types. Rank of a word - without repetition of letters Suppose that you are given a word in which none of the letters are repeated and you asked to find out the rank of the word in a dictionary. For example, if the word which was given to you was CAT, it will be very easy to find out its rank. You will write down all possible combinations of

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For this series of articles, I am assuming CAT 2020 would be the first time you would be attempting CAT, which essentially implies that you are not well versed with the basic ideas behind the Quantitative Aptitude portion. In the latter half of the year, I would move to slightly more advanced topics as by then, you would also have moved to the advanced stage of preparation. Best Online Coaching for CAT 2020 I have often seen students struggle with the topic – ‘Permutation & Combination’. As a matter of fact, I have even seen some faculties shy away from conducting those cl

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