Paragraph Summary Questions And Tips For Verbal Ability Of Cat Exam

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By now, you should be familiar with 50% of the verbal ability section's topics: vocabulary and RC with the help of best teachers for CAT preparation. Let's move on to another important aspect of VA, namely Verbal Reasoning. As the name implies, the purpose of this section is to assess your reasoning abilities. The paragraph summary is one of the most important types of questions in this section.

What exactly is a paragraph summary? How would you summarize a three-hour film if someone asked you to? And what if it's your favorite film? That is, after all, the purpose of summary questions. All you have to do is comprehend the paragraph and then deduce its main point. Sounds simple, doesn't it? What if you were asked to summarize a 400-page book in just a few words? Yes, you will need to learn some skills in order to answer summary questions.

Now, what do you think the purpose of a summary line or lines is? As you might expect, it conveys the overall meaning of the paragraph/s. You must write or select a summary of one or more lines. The summary questions take the following forms: 'the author's primary purpose is...', ...
... 'the main idea of the passage is...', 'which of the following could be the title?', and so on. Let's look at the abilities required to answer these questions:

Ability to summarise well:
A paragraph may contain multiple messages. Your goal should be to identify the main idea or central theme that the paragraph revolves around. Do not be distracted by the paragraph's irrelevant points or facts. Before summarizing, make sure you understand the paragraph completely. The summary's chronology should correspond to the given passage.

The summary should be precise, broad in scope, and concise. A good way to practice this skill is to read a newspaper/magazine article every day and try to identify the main point.

Pre-thinking:
If the paragraph/s expresses several ideas, try to combine them into a single main point. Before looking at the options, you should summarize the paragraph in your own words. It's similar to analyzing and then summarizing an article from a magazine. This will simply make determining the correct option easier.

Once you've summarized it in your own words, all you need to know is which option conveys the same message.

Vocabulary:
For obvious reasons, vocabulary is the common thread that runs through all aspects of CAT Verbal Ability. It would be fantastic if you could expand your vocabulary. This will assist you in arriving at the correct answer in less time. Another intriguing method is to select your favorite topics and devote time to quality reading. It will improve your comprehension skills and broaden your vocabulary.

Evaluation skills:
This is one of the most crucial abilities. Answer choices are frequently deceptive. Your ability to identify the best option is critical here. You must look for an option that is similar to the one you wrote in your own words.

In another case, you might not have thought of the main point. If the options appear too complex, you can employ an 'elimination strategy.' If you need more clarity on the main idea, you should reread the paragraph. Practice summary questions from previous year papers and mock tests is the best way to improve this skill.

Now, let's go over a step-by-step method for answering summary questions:

1. Identify the main subject
As you are aware, the paragraphs could be from any field of study: philosophy, political science, history, science, humanities, and so on. To put it another way, you may be unfamiliar with the subject. So, the first task is to read the paragraph/s as if they were RC passages. As you read, highlight the key points and ideas. You will be able to identify the topic discussed by the author after reading it with the help of best home tutors for CAT preparation.

2. Linking the key ideas
Once you've created a mental map of the key points, try to figure out how they're related. In other words, determine what the author is attempting to convey about the main subject. It's similar to how a movie conveys a message through a series of scenes. So, try to imagine yourself in the author's shoes.
You are binding the sub-units together in this manner to form a single unit.

3. Write the summary
You had been identifying the main points in the paragraph up to this point. You must write them in your own words in this step. Summarize the main idea of the paragraph/s in other words. You must be cautious of any irrelevant information in the paragraph. Such unrelated information is intended to distract you from the correct option.
Your summary should be concise, concise, and accurate. Reread your summary to make sure it conveys the main point.

4. Select the relevant answer option
Selecting the correct option- The goal of the preceding three steps is to select the correct option! So, how do you approach this? When you've written a summary in your own words, all you have to do is see which answer option resonates with it. Remove the irrelevant answer options and select the one that is closest to your self-written summary. The chosen statement's meaning should not change. Do not be distracted by the verbose options presented.

You might also assume that the summary is in the last few lines of the paragraph. This, however, is not the case. The chosen answer option should concisely reflect the paragraph's beginning, middle, and end.
The response should be brief and grammatically correct. Make sure your response is 'to the point' and does not linger.
Finally, consider how you can avoid selecting incorrect answer choices:

Out-of-scope answer options:
As a result, you must believe that such options will be flatly rejected. However, most of the time, these answer options are related to the same topic as discussed in the paragraph/s. That's how they make things complicated! Remember to think about 'what is discussed in the passage' rather than just 'about what'.

You will be able to easily eliminate them if you have thoroughly understood and analyzed the passage. For example, if a passage discusses the social consequences and losses suffered during World War II, you cannot select an answer option that discusses the political consequences of World War II.

Narrow/Partial scope answer options:
As the name implies, such options reflect only a few ideas from the given paragraph/s and ignore the remaining important points. Sometimes, such choices accurately state the facts as stated in the passage but do not cover the entire passage. In other words, in terms of the given passage, such answer options are only partially true. In general, it is preferable to select an answer option with a broad scope.

For example, if a passage describes British India's political and economic conditions, the answer option cannot only indicate the political aspect.

Extreme answer options:
So, what do you consider an extreme option to be? Perhaps when you exaggerate or exaggerate something or someone. Similarly, such options exaggerate or exaggerate the facts presented in the paragraph/s. In some cases, the answer options express the polar opposite of the ideas presented in the passage. So, exercise extreme caution when selecting such answers.

If the author discusses a subject in a critical tone, you may be tempted to choose an extreme answer that goes beyond the scope of the paragraph. So, try to keep the summary to the author's point of view.

New idea/Inconsistent answer options:
What if a film deviates from its main theme and takes an unexpected new turn? That's when you can't remember what it was all about. Similarly, such answer options convey the main idea while also providing additional information. This new information may or may not be related to the given passage. In other words, the answer option appears to take an unfinished idea stated in the paragraph/s and finish it with a new point.
As a result, it is absolutely necessary to read the entire statement before selecting it. Also, do not let your personal preferences influence your choice of answer option.

You should be familiar with the strategy for answering paragraph summary questions by now. The next step should be to carry it out efficiently. It all comes down to two things: reading and practice. The more you read, the faster you will become and the better your reading skills will be. An engaged reader can grasp the paragraph's underlying message more accurately and quickly. Furthermore, practicing such questions on a daily basis will familiarize you with the types of questions you will be asked in the CAT.

Finally, brevity is essential when summarizing a paragraph.