What is your approach for VARC? VA or RC first?

Asked by Eluri Vamsi Krishna on 2026-08-22 in CAT Prep

I tried a new strategy of doing VA first in last 2 sectionals I gave and the results were horrific..
sec-1 -> 15/72 marks
sec-2 (today) -> 1/72 (3correct, 11wrong) got all 6 VA i attempted wrong..
I saw that i spent 15-16 mins in VA section first.. might have affected my RCs too.. got only 3 right out of 8 attempted

Shifting my approach to RC first

3 Answers

Shreya Garg · 2026-08-22 · 2 helpful

It depends on your strengths, I have started doing VA first and just given it for 3 mocks, my score is decent and I am sticking with VA first approach. You can actually twirk your approach until September Mid, then fix yourself. Hence practise using sectional tests to know more about your strengths and attempt strategy

Takshil Garg · 2026-08-22 · 2 helpful

Usually, I do RCs that are more familiar to me—I mean, the ones that are easy to understand—and I don't attempt all the RCs. I pick the ones I feel familiar with. This helps me save time and understand the strategy to tackle the VARC section by consuming less time. So, I usually do VA first because it is a little easier to solve compared to RCs. In the beginning, I faced the same problem, but then I discovered where I was lacking. After finding the loophole and fixing it, I can say that now I can solve RCs more easily than before

Ipsita Das · 2026-08-22 · 1 helpful

Usually, I go about solving it like LRDI.

1. Check out the sets and decide which ones to attempt.
2. Then attempt the RCs selected cause I've roughly gone through them, so better memory retention(also I feel doing the RC first makes you focus better)
3. Then the VA
4. Parajumbles for the last cause it can make you question the answer choices you have selected.

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