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Below are a few topics which are unique to CET and account for 15-20 marks in the paper. With these, I would have covered almost all the major topics on CET prep.

Parajumbles

The paper might contain a solitary set wherein, you have to re-arrange a jumbled paragraph. The first sentence of the paragraph might be fixed so as to help you form a link. The questions are similar to those found in many other entrance tests but there is a slight twist to it. While in other papers, you get various versions of the formed paragraph out of which, you have to choose one, in CET, there is absolutely no help that can be taken from the options. The questions will be of the type:

Which option is the SECOND/THIRD/FOURTH sentence in the completed paragraph?

So, you have to have a complete paragraph formed before you start attempting the questions. Also, you cannot make a solitary mistake in the paragraph. If you miss the position of one sentence, you automatically mess up another sentence. So, the marks earned need not be proportionate to the time invested in solving these kind of questions. The questions take time and the accuracy is low.

In such questions, what you can do is read the first sentence and comprehend it thoroughly. With the help of pronouns, acronyms and connectives, you should be able to find a sentence which follows the opening sentence. Also, basic rules of solving a parajumble apply here. You can see for the various connectives which would be there. You can always find a link of two or three sentences and can then go for the entire question.

Courses of Action

In this type, there will be a question statement followed by two courses of action to be taken in response to the incident in the question statement. The options are generally contradictory ‘yes/no’ types. One of them will be in support and the other one will oppose the central idea. However, there might be cases when, both the options are in favour of or against the statement.

The thing you have to do is to choose the logically sound option. While choosing the answer, you will have to take into consideration all the implications that that action will have. Another pointer would be to avoid extreme and irreversible effects as far as possible.

Cause and effect

In this type, there will be two statements provided and you will have to determine whether one of them is a cause of the other. In this, you have to first find out which of the statements is a cause and which one is an effect. It can happen in some cases that both the statements are effects of a common cause. The cause has to be a direct one i.e. it should have a direct effect which is stated in the other statement.

In these questions, care has to be taken so as to find out whether the cause is immediate or far-fetched. An aspirant could lose marks here because of ‘overthinking’ about the statement. Keeping things simple and going just one step above or below the statement should help getting a better accuracy in this question-type.

Grammatical errors/ Sentence correction

These questions are similar to those you may have come across in other management entrance tests. The errors are pretty easy to spot and if you have a good command over the language, you can get the entire lot of five marks. The errors are mainly based on checking whether you have an eye for parallelism, subject-verb agreement and idiomatic/prepositional usage.

To crack these questions, you have to carefully read the entire statement. One mistake people make is that, they tend to mark the answer as soon as they feel they have spotted an error. While there can be typos and grammatical mistakes in the paper, the error might be at the end of the sentence. So, reading the entire sentence before marking any option is a must. This, along with a basic knowledge of the common errors committed should suffice. The level of difficulty of these kind of questions is low and if you have to score big in the test, these questions have to be cracked.

While two of these topics have a formula and aren’t based on perception (Sentence correction and Parajumbles), the other two are based on how you interpret the situation and how you think about a solution considering all the aspects.

For parajumbles, not taking too much time is important. Putting in too much thought into solving the question does not necessarily translate into good marks. If you are not very confident, it is better to leave it for later than persist with it. You might take 3-4 minutes to get the entire thing right but then with 5 marks on stake, it would be a chance worth taking if you have time on disposition.

For the sentence correction/spotting errors in sentence questions, you have to read the sentence properly, disregard any minor typos and punctuation mistakes and look for the more technical mistake present. Solving these questions would not take much time and will get you good marks.

For the courses of action and the cause and effect questions, a single reading is enough to understand what is being said in the statement. You can decide if there is a logical connection between the two statements and then mark the answer. Even these questions won’t take more than 30-35 seconds to crack.

All the articles by me on CET 11 prep can be accessed through this link.

Cracking Maharashtra CET 2011

Next up will be an article on strategy. We will also have a special FAQs piece at the end of the week. If you have questions, please mail them to [email protected] and mark ‘CET question’ in the subject line, before February 25.