CAT 2016: Logical Reasoning 16% weightage; Improve your percentile with right approach

CAT 2016 proposes to have around 16 questions on Logical Reasoning and out of them you may find 4 questions on the concept of Ranking. Cracking them correct can award you 12 core marks and may add 24 to 28 to your percentile. How Ranking helps you to decide to arrive at the end result is the key perspective behind placing questions based on this concept in CAT every year.

Will your high overall score in CAT 2016 give you the opportunity to get admission in highly ranked IIMs and other B-schools or you need balanced score also? Ask this question to yourself and you will get the answer in favour of the latter part.

When you begin your preparation journey to get into one of the top 3 or 4 IIMs, the only thing which is common on the minds of all aspirants, is that they are aspiring for the best available opportunity in education field which would provide what they wish to have in the best possible manner.

What is Ranking- how important in CAT 2016? How do you choose your preferred IIM or any other choice of selection? Suppose you are offered admission by all the IIMs you have a clear vision where to go. The selection of preferred IIM is based on the Ranking which in turn depends on various factors like past performance, faculty, departments, campus, academic and industrial exposure etc.

In a nutshell, Ranking might relate to an object/objects, person, institutions etc. based on their stature, performance, size, distance, height, weight and so on. Placing any object according to certain norms of ranking will measure the same in either descending or ascending order.

In the Logical Reasoning section of CAT 2016, you may find one or more than one question based on the concept of Ranking. It is very important to understand the strategy and required skill that would cater to solve such Logical Reasoning Problems.

Strategy and Required Skill

1. Analyse the information given in the question after attentive reading

2. Find out the various clues in the information, form a table

3. Form a structure in accordance to the question which requires creation of Rankings

4. Place the clues and necessary information in table. This will help you to avoid referring to the text information again and again apart from the fact that you will be able to answer number of questions based on the gathered information.

5. The clues which may not be direct may be understood and should be placed where your table needs the same. Visualize the movement of the question.

6. Whatever information you have not been able to decode, may be left blank in the prepared table till you are able to insert it.

7. Now you have got plenty of information. You may proceed to answer any question based on the information

CAT 2016 Sample Questions on Ranking Question is followed by two statements, A and B. Answer the question using the following instructions

Mark (a) if the question can be answered by using statement A alone but not by using statement B alone Mark(b) if the question can be answered by using statement B alone but not by using statement A alone. Mark(c) if the question can be answered by using either of the statements alone. Mark(d) if the question can be answered by using both the statements together but not by either of the statements alone Mark(e) if the question cannot be answered on the basis of the two statements.

Q.1-In a particular school, sixty students were athletes. Ten among them were also among the top academic performers. How many top academic performers were in the school?

A. Sixty percent of the top academic performers were not athletes

B. All the top academic performers were not necessarily athletes.

1.(a) 2.(b) 3.(c) 4.(d) 5.(e)

Q.2 Five students Atul, Bala, Chetan, Dev and Ernesto were the only ones who participated in a quiz contest. They were ranked based on their scores in the contest. Dev got a higher rank as compared Ernesto, while Bala got a higher rank as compared to Chetan. Chetans rank was lower than the medium. Who among the five got the highest rank?

A. Atul was the last rank holder.

B. Bala was not among the top two rank holders.

Approach to answer Expert tips

(a) should be the right answer. As per Statement A- 60 percent of top academic performers were not athletes; but 40 percent were athletes. Ten among the athletes were also top academic performers, hence it can now be resolved that number of top academic performers can be found as athletes plus non athletes, so A is sufficient to answer the question. Now let us analyse the statement B.- All the top academic performers were not necessarily athletes, well we need more information in this regard which is not available in the statement B. Therefore, option (a) is the right answer.

(d) is the right answer. Try to form a table on the basis of Statement A Atul was the last rank holder meaning the following

Dev (higher rank than Ernesto) Ernesto (Lower rank than Dev) Bala (higher than Chetan but below median so 4th or 5th) Hence cant be placed here Chetan Below Bala AtulLast rank holder BUT how possible-

The possibilities,however, bring B and D, hence as per our approach we find that answer cannot be formed based on statement A only.

Now analyse the statement B According to this statement nothing substantial is divulged to us. Many combinations could come up with the placement of first rank. It could be either Atul or Dev. We are required to use both the statements and if we use statement B along with A, we arrive at the right possibility of Dev being the topper conforming to the given information.