CAT is considered one of the toughest MBA entrance exams in India and a detailed preparation strategy is required for all the 3 sections. Coming to the Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) section of CAT, it can be your strongest suit or saddest weakness. Hence, given that you have almost a year before CAT 2025, it is best to start your VARC preparation ASAP. This article will guide you on how to cover the entire VARC syllabus and how to have a well-rounded CAT VARC Strategy 2025. We have broken down the entire timeline available to us till CAT 2025 and what all you should be ideally doing.
Phase 1: CAT VARC Preparation Strategy – January to February 2025 – Building Strong Foundations
Objective: Develop consistent reading habits and improve overall hold on English by working vocabulary, grammar and comprehension skills.
CAT VARC Strategy – January 2025:
Key Focus: Establish reading habits and get better at vocabulary.
- Start with reading a variety of editorials and other materials every day. Best is to start with newspapers (like The Hindu or The Indian Express), their opinion pieces, other business journals and non-fiction books. The more variety you cover, the better you will get at solving RCs due to more familiarity.
- Spend some time building your vocabulary by reading new words daily. CAT will never ask the meaning of any word directly but it becomes very important in some contexts as a few RC questions get very difficult to solve otherwise.
- Work on your basic grammar and sentence structure skills. The Verbal Ability (VA) part of the VARC section often tests sentence correction, para jumbles and summary-based questions. Having a good hold on grammar will help you tackle these very easily.
CAT 2025 VARC Daily Study Routine:
- Dedicate about 30-45 minutes every day in reading editorials or different articles.
- Spend 15-20 minutes daily improving vocabulary. You can use flashcards or apps to make this more interactive and can do this anytime in the day.
- Spend about 30 minutes solving basic verbal ability questions like odd one out and para jumbles.
End-of-Month Goal: By the end of January, you should have started to build a daily reading habit and improved your understanding of basic grammar and verbal ability in general as per our CAT VARC Strategy 2025.
CAT VARC 2025 Strategy February 2025:
Key Focus: Improving reading comprehension, interpretation and sentence jumbling skills.
- Begin to work on Reading Comprehension (RC) exercises. Start with very simple passages and move to more complex ones with time. Try to understand the main idea, the tone and structure of the passage. The actual CAT passages are dense and require critical thinking, hence you got to build the same skill.
- Now try to move towards practicing Para Jumbles and Odd One Out questions. These basically test your logical reasoning and sentence arrangement skills. Work on them diligently.
- Continue working on vocabulary and daily reading. Now prioritize reading material related to business, economics, psychology and philosophy, given that CAT passages often cover these topics.
CAT VARC 2025 Daily Study Routine:
- Dedicate about an hour daily to reading comprehension practice. Choose RCs from a variety of topics to get a hang of it.
- Spend about 30 minutes on VA questions, especially para jumbles and odd sentence out as these are TITA questions.
End-of-Phase Goal: By the end of February 2025, you should be able to handle basic-level RC and VA questions as per our CAT VARC Strategy 2025.
Phase 2: CAT VARC 2025 Preparation Strategy – March to June 2025 – Strengthening Skills and Practice
Objective: Increase your overall speed and improve your understanding of different question types in VARC.
CAT VARC Strategy 2025 – March
Key Focus: Now move into advanced reading comprehension and other VA questions.
- Now it is time where you should begin to focus on more complex RC passages like themes of metaphysical, sociology, philosophy and psychology and other abstract topics. These are often difficult to interpret, and questions are usually layered.
- Continue practicing more of Para Summary questions, which are difficult and tricky.
- Additionally, focus on para summaries as well. It is very important as you can expect 2-3 questions in this format in CAT 2025.
CAT 2025 VARC Daily Study Routine:
- Spend about 1 hour daily practicing RC questions, either from old past papers or any sort of test series. Aim for solving at least two passages per day to keep the momentum going.
- Dedicate about 30-40 minutes to practicing Para Summary and Para Jumbles. Focus on improving your sequencing skills.
- Continue reading daily irrespective of whether you are solving any RC or not.
End-of-Month Goal: By the end of March, you should become comfortable with solving complex RC passages and be familiar with difficult VA question types like para summaries and para jumbles.
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CAT VARC Stratgey 2025 – April – May 2025:
Key Focus: Improving speed and accuracy in VARC.
- Focus on speed reading without compromising on your interpretation skills. This is very essential for CAT as the RC passages can be lengthy and time management becomes important.
- Begin sectional mock tests for VARC. These tests will help you understand how to balance speed with accuracy and will also simulate exam conditions in a very timed manner.
- For VA questions, practice eliminating wrong options. You cannot always try to figure the right option, hence elimination becomes very important for you to find the correct answer.
CAT VARC 2025 – Daily Study Routine:
- Now trying spending 1.5 hours daily practicing timed RC sets and VA questions. Aim to complete at least sectional tests twice a week. You can also use GMAT Club to solve more RCs.
- Do not undermine your reading habit due to practicing RCs or solving VA questions. Your reading habit will help you strategize on the D-day.
End-of-Month Goal: By the end of May, you should have improved your reading speed, have a strong hold on VA questions as per the discussed CAT VARC Strategy 2025.
CAT Preparation Strategy for VARC Section – June 2025
Key Focus: It is time now to start solving medium-to-advanced level RC and VA questions.
- By now, you should be able to solve RC questions from a variety of topics. Start timing your practice sessions to simulate exam conditions where you will get to know your accuracy.
- Also, focus on accuracy in VA questions. Do not over-attempt in these sectional mocks. Learn to get away with trickier questions.
- Start analyzing your mistakes carefully. If you’re consistently getting certain types of questions wrong (e.g., inference-based RC questions), focus on strengthening those areas.
CAT 2025 VARC Daily Study Routine:
- Spend 1.5-2 hours daily practicing VARC questions and have a balance between RC and VA.
- Keep your reading habit intact and try to cover more and more of digital content.
End-of-Phase Goal: By the end of June, you should have strong command over VARC questions, be comfortable with timings and try to have fewer mistakes in mock tests.
Phase 3: CAT VARC Strategy 2025 – July to September 2025 – Mock Tests and Intensive Practice
Objective: Now build your test-taking strategy by taking mock tests and analyzing them thoroughly.
CAT VARC Preparation Strategy 2025 – July 2025:
Key Focus: Start with full-length CAT mock tests and have a thorough analysis.
- Start taking full-length mock tests once a week. Focus on how you are performing in the VARC section, especially balancing between speed and accuracy.
- Here comes the main part where you need to analyse your mocks thoroughly. You need to work on re-visiting the RCs and try to re-attempt the questions and see why you did wrong in these mock tests.
CAT 2025 Daily Study Routine:
- Dedicate now 1-1.5 hours daily to VARC practice. Focus on specific weak areas identified through these mock tests analysis.
- Focus more on critical RCs as these are more common in the CAT exam.
- Continue solving VA questions like para summaries, odd one out and para jumbles.
CAT VARC Mock Test Strategy:
- Spend 2-3 hours analyzing each mock. It is often told that you should spend more time analyzing the mock than attempting the test itself.
- Track your progress from test to test. Try avenues for improvement by identifying the issues.
End-of-Month Goal: By the end of July, you should be ideally scoring higher in your mock tests than before and would be making fewer mistakes in RC and VA questions.
CAT VARC Preparation Strategy 2025 – August – September 2025:
Key Focus: Simulating real exam conditions and focusing on weaker avenues.
- Build resilience and now increase the frequency of taking full-length mocks now to at least twice a week. This will help you build endurance and ensure that your test-taking strategies are well-rounded before the actual exam.
- For VA, try to take multiple sub-topic tests now where you practice one-type of questions but have a good number of questions.
CAT 2025 VARC Daily Study Routine:
- Spend 2-2.5 hours daily on VARC practice along with balancing other sections of CAT.
- Focus on accuracy over speed. Now you know how much you can stretch in the actual exam and hence, accuracy will fetch you better scores.
End-of-Phase Goal: By the end of September, you should be scoring consistently well in the VARC section of your mock tests.
CAT VARC Strategy 2025 – Phase 4: October to November 2025 – Final Touches and Exam Strategy
Objective: Final revision and gearing up for CAT 2025.
CAT 2025 VARC Strategy – October 2025:
Key Focus: Refine and rebuild if required your test-taking strategies and focus on weak areas.
- Continue taking 2-3 mock tests per week. Do not overdo by taking a mock daily.
- There is no hard and fast rule for VARC but at least for VA questions, use techniques learnt in the initial months.
VARC Preparation Strategy 2025 – November 2025:
Key Focus: Maintaining clarity and building confidence.
- In the last two weeks, take 1-2 final mock tests just to stay abreast, but avoid any overwhelming experiences for yourself. Make sure you are healthy and are confident enough to attempt the exam.
