In a series of posts, we are going to cover the basics of some DI/LR topics. The first topic of discussion is Binary Logic. In a binary logic problem, we have people who either speak a true statement or a false statement. These people are divided into three categories: Truth-teller: This person will always speak the truth. All the statements made by this person are true. Liar: This person will always tell a lie. All statements made by this person are false. Alternator: This person always alternates between the truth and the lie. If first statement of this person is true, then se

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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

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In one of the earlier posts on this blog, we had discussed the important books for CAT preparation and how reading helps with tackling the verbal ability section. If you go through a lot of the reading comprehension passages asked in exams you will realize they are similar in tone to these books or newspaper articles and that is why reading helps. But just reading will not help. To really shave off time required in answering a question (especially in RCs) it is best if you know what the words mean eliminating the need to guess or take time to understand what the passage is talking about

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If you are a regular consumer of news, there are a lot of words that people keep using especially on social media - nationalist, feminist, racist, etc. You may have heard of these words, but do you know what these actually mean? In this post, we will look at some of the most popular ‘-isms’ doing rounds these days. The idea is to better understand the meaning and usage so that you can use it in the correct manner. unlike news channel panelists or social media revolutionaries. A more important reason is as an aspirant you must be clear with these terms. You may find these words in

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Let’s start with the basic question - what exactly is the difference between an idiom and proverb? Are they the same? If you say, “at loggerheads” instead of “strong disagreement among people,” you're using an idiom. The meaning of an idiom is different from the actual meaning of the words used. “Make hay while the sun shines” is a proverb. Proverbs are old but familiar sayings that usually give advice. A phrase is just a group of words. If you know the meaning of the individual words in a phrase, you know the meaning it conveys. But in an idiom, the meaning is not c

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This is the last post in the series on confusing words. If you haven't read them already, check out Understanding Confusing Words – Part 1 and Understanding Confusing Words – Part 2. where we have discussed a list of important words that you should know if you want to save some time in the verbal section of CAT, IIFT, XAT or any other MBA entrance exam. In this post, we will first look at a few more words and then we will talk about how to use make use of the words you have learnt through these posts. Why is this important? Because skimming through blog posts will not help much. Whe

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In the Understanding Confusing Words – Part 1, we discussed confusing words. As discussed Learning New Words – Why, How and Strategies, these words are not directly related to CAT prep for the vocab section or for any MBA exam per se (so don't expect direct questions based on these words) but knowing the right words and the correct usage will make your job much easier while attempting questions. Let us extend the list with a few more words. Prescribe vs. Proscribe - These similar sounding words have very different meanings. Prescribe is the more common word, and it's often

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In the last post we looked at some ways to learn new words - reading with context, flashcards, word group lists and studying by comparing words. We had discussed about identifying words that are confused easily. In this post we will look at some examples involving these confusing words. Now, will a misunderstanding cost you marks in the exam? Not necessarily so, because like we discussed last time, no questions simply ask for meanings of words. However, when you’re reading a block of text and reach this word where you are not quite sure of the meaning, that is enough to cause a pro

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Take the previous papers of any MBA entrance exam and look for questions that ask for the meaning of a particular word. The chances are pretty low that you will find a multiple choice question of the format - “The meaning of X is:” followed by four options. Doing the same thing for antonyms or idioms will probably not give you a lot of questions either. So no exam is going to ask you for word meanings. If so, then why learn new words, antonyms or idioms if they are not asked as direct questions in the exams? It starts with having a large list of words at your disposal so that you

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XAT just released the official answer key and detailed solutions for XAT 2017. XAT 2017 Official Answer Key It is given below in slightly poor formatting. You can download the original official key as well. SET A SET B SET C SET D B 1 B 1 B 1 E 1 B 2 E 2 B 2 B 2 E 3 B 3 B 3 B 3 B 4 B 4

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