I got a lot of feedback via emails and texts that people are looking for a post on geometry. I have been avoiding it for sometime because of two main reasons: a)      It is not one of my strong areas. b)      It takes a lot of time to draw the diagrams that are sometimes required to explain the fundas. The questions on geometry are the trickiest and consumes the maximum amount of time as compared to the questions on other topics in Quantitative aptitude that is why, I have compiled a list of fundas that you might find helpful in solving CAT level questions. I am splittin

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let me first list down the topics that I am going to cover in this particular blogpost: Number of factors of a given number Number of even factors or odd factors of a given number Sum of all factors of a given number Sum of all even factors or odd factors of a given number   We know that a number N can be written as a product of its factors as given below   N = ap x bq x cr … Here a,b,c… are prime factors of N & p,q,r … are the powers of the prime factors of N.   In such a case the number of factors of N are given by the formula &

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In my previous post on games and tournaments, 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. Points

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In Logical Reasoning very often we encounter problems based on games of 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 ot

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The concept of ‘divide and conquer’, derived from the Latin phrase ‘Divide et impera’, was put into use effectively by everyone from Caesar to Napoleon to The British in India. Even Gaddafi tried using the same but as current events show us – he wasn’t very effective. Dividing rather divisibility rules to be specific can come in really handy at times in solving problems based on Number Systems. The standard rules which nearly all of us are very comfortable with are the ones for 2n and 5n. For these all that one needs to do is look at the last ‘n’ digits of the number. If

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We all know what factorials (n!) are. They look friendly and helpful but looks can be deceiving, as many quant problems have taught us. Probably it is because that Factorials are simple looking creatures, most students prefer attempting questions based on them rather than on Permutation & Combination or Probability. I will cover P&C and Probability at a later date but in today’s post I would like to discuss some fundas related to factorials, which as a matter of fact form the basis of a large number of P&C and Probability problems.   Some of the factorials that mig

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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 bas

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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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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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