Thanos · 2026-09-03 · 2 helpful
QA (Quant) — Arithmetic + Algebra are ~65-70% of the entire section.Where to deprioritize: Modern Math. It's the lowest-weightage topic and notoriously the trickiest to get fast at — bad time-to-marks ratio. I wouldn't skip it entirely (know the basics, don't leave 2 free questions on the table), but it should get the least hours of anything in QA. Geometry gets moderate attention, not heavy — it's real weightage but less "shortcut-able" than Arithmetic, so the return on extra hours there is lower. Arithmetic and Algebra should eat roughly 70% of your total quant time, since together they are most of the section.
VARC — Reading Comprehension alone is ~65-68% of the section
Everything else — para-jumbles, para-summary, odd-sentence-out, para-completion — splits the remaining ~32-35%. So RC practice should dominate your VARC time, but don't skip the verbal-ability question types either — they're actually easier to get consistently right once you learn the pattern (para-jumbles especially follow repeatable logic), so they're high-value for their size, just not where your bulk hours go.
DILR — different logic entirely, no "skip this topic" answer
DILR doesn't work like QA/VARC because it's genuinely unpredictable year to year — a topic that dominated 2022 might barely show up in 2025. The real skill here isn't "which topic to skip in prep," it's set-selection speed on exam day — being fast enough at reading a set's opening lines to judge "solvable in 8 minutes" vs "this will eat 15 and I still might not finish," and skipping the second kind live, not in advance. Tables/graphs and caselet-style sets recur most often, so build the most fluency there — but don't drop puzzle/arrangement practice entirely, since you genuinely can't predict which will show up on your slot.
Direct answer to "is it bad to skip any": yes, technically — CAT is normalized across slots and low-weightage topics still occasionally spike. But realistically, with your timeline, deliberately spending less time on Modern Math specifically (not zero, just less) is the one broadly-agreed, standard triage move every serious CAT prep source recommends — it's the worst hours-to-marks trade in the whole syllabus. Everything else, keep at least baseline coverage rather than fully cutting it.
VARC — Reading Comprehension alone is ~65-68% of the section
Everything else — para-jumbles, para-summary, odd-sentence-out, para-completion — splits the remaining ~32-35%. So RC practice should dominate your VARC time, but don't skip the verbal-ability question types either — they're actually easier to get consistently right once you learn the pattern (para-jumbles especially follow repeatable logic), so they're high-value for their size, just not where your bulk hours go.
DILR — different logic entirely, no "skip this topic" answer
DILR doesn't work like QA/VARC because it's genuinely unpredictable year to year — a topic that dominated 2022 might barely show up in 2025. The real skill here isn't "which topic to skip in prep," it's set-selection speed on exam day — being fast enough at reading a set's opening lines to judge "solvable in 8 minutes" vs "this will eat 15 and I still might not finish," and skipping the second kind live, not in advance. Tables/graphs and caselet-style sets recur most often, so build the most fluency there — but don't drop puzzle/arrangement practice entirely, since you genuinely can't predict which will show up on your slot.
Direct answer to "is it bad to skip any": yes, technically — CAT is normalized across slots and low-weightage topics still occasionally spike. But realistically, with your timeline, deliberately spending less time on Modern Math specifically (not zero, just less) is the one broadly-agreed, standard triage move every serious CAT prep source recommends — it's the worst hours-to-marks trade in the whole syllabus. Everything else, keep at least baseline coverage rather than fully cutting it.